Boss: We've been working on solutions to improve consistency
Working on methods to improve overall levels of consistency made up a sizeable part of Liverpool's summer training and preparation programmes, Jürgen Klopp today explained.
The Reds get their campaign up and running on the Premier League's opening weekend with a trip to the Emirates to face Arsenal on Sunday following the manager's first full pre-season at the helm.
And Klopp is hoping the exertions they've been undergoing on the training pitch since July 2 will enable his team to show their best more often in 2016-17.
The boss told his pre-match press conference at Melwood: “Consistency is the only way to be successful. All of these big jumps in performance, up and down, don't help. It's possible because we are all human beings and things can happen that should not happen too often.
“Consistency is the way we have to choose and for this we have to prepare always for the next game very seriously during the week and by being at 100 per cent when we start.
“We have a lot of things to do, but the main thing we have to do at weekends is win games and for this you always have to be in the best shape you can be. That's a big, big challenge.”
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Part of the efforts into trying to enhance Liverpool's consistency have included sessions on fluid and flexible responses to an opposing team's set-up and finding the correct methods to break them down.
Klopp continued: “Different things have influence on consistency – the style of play, the shape, the injury situation… a lot of things.
“The biggest advantage Leicester had last year was not that they didn't have to play that many games because they could have had injuries with fewer games, but they could play nearly the whole season with the same team. That helps if it's good – and the team was obviously good and they came into a run.
“There are different ways to be successful and in the end, to moan about a situation is the first thing you should not do. If you have injuries, you have to take the situation like it is. If you lost the last game, you have to use this defeat. If you won the last game, you have to use it.
“All of this is difficult because it's the Premier League and your own shape is only one of the things that is important, the shape of the other team is pretty important too. That's what we've tried to do in pre-season – to be more independent to the style of play of the other team. If they defend deep, we cannot change it – we cannot say, 'come on, it's boring, give us a little bit of space to play'.
“If they only play counter-attack, if they play high pressure, all that stuff, you need to always have a solution. That's what we were working on. In general, and now in this week, we thought about things we have to do especially in the Arsenal game.”
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