Liverpool 7-2 Blackpool: Jürgen Klopp's reaction
Jürgen Klopp declared himself satisfied with Liverpool’s latest pre-season workout as they defeated Blackpool 7-2 in a friendly at Anfield on Saturday afternoon.
The Reds fell two goals behind to the League One club as CJ Hamilton opened the scoring and Jerry Yates crashed home a penalty.
However, Joel Matip reduced the arrears before the break and Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino struck twice in quick succession after the restart.
Further goals followed from Harvey Elliott, Takumi Minamino, Divock Origi and Sepp van den Berg to give the final scoreline a comprehensive look.
Watch: Liverpool 7-2 Blackpool in 90 seconds
The champions open up their Premier League campaign in a week’s time against Leeds United at Anfield – and Klopp explained he is pleased with his side’s preparations for the new term.
Read on to see what he told Liverpoolfc.com during his post-match assessment…
On his assessment of the game and a difficult first half…
Yeah, it was because of a lack of aggression from our side, a lack of desire a little bit for this game – that’s how it is, playing around. The goals we conceded, yeah, that’s mistakes – it’s typical for pre-season games. But so far I think we conceded pretty much all the goals in similar situations; losing the ball in the build-up, then it’s a counter-attack, it’s a free chance pretty much. We know that and it’s clear we cannot do it like this. We have to improve that. But we have another week to get the legs fresher, again an intense week. We have to use the weeks, we cannot change that. I would love to have always fresh boys with super fresh legs in the games, but that only can work over the year when you do the hard work in the pre-season. That’s what we are doing. We scored a good goal after a nice set-piece in the first half, then all the rest was pretty much like it should be [in the second half] – much more aggressive and we could bring in other fresh legs. That helped obviously. The opponent changed as well. I think Critch has a really good team there; the first XI was really, really good, had a good, nice plan. We played a little bit into their cards. But in the end it’s a pre-season game, important that we have it. Some of the boys could have 90 minutes, which helps as well. Now another week until Leeds – good.
On two goals in a week for Minamino and how much confidence he’ll take from it…
I hope, a lot – it’s clear that’s what you always hope for. It’s important for Taki and important for us, but it’s about all together, so I think about the overall performance. Individuals then can always shine when everything else works, that’s how it is. If you only have these individual glimpses here and there, it doesn’t really work out. So, we have to work to win football games. Who scores then is not too important. But for Taki, of course it was a rather nice seven or eight days – of course.
On Elliott’s first goal for the club…
It’s in his hands. I liked much more the offers he made today, he was really sharp, he was quick, he offered different runs to what he is usually doing. Inside this little boy is a playmaker, he can be a playmaker, but he has to be a finisher as well. You have to be a striker, you have to be a defender and all that stuff. That’s what we are all trying to figure out to bring it on the pitch – and that’s good, of course. It was very nice for him to score this goal today.
On whether the game is one Billy Koumetio will learn from…
Absolutely. We had some problems in the first half. [The opening goal] was a pressed ball against a very experienced player, who was stronger in that moment. Billy played super balls, super passes and was there. Our last line played [for the] first time together like this, it is completely fine, but we were just not high enough. There were many situations where I thought it must be offside, but it wasn’t offside. For one reason at least, it was not offside because we were not really in line. All these things, little things to learn, but 17 years old, the whole life in front of him, which is really nice. [He is a] big talent and, as I said, he had a few really, really good situations, but in this press ball, it was not so nice.
On how he feels Liverpool’s pre-season preparations went…
It was as good as possible, I would say. We had a lot of good sessions and we will get the benefit of that during the season. We have to make sure we now get ready for the first game against Leeds because that will be a really tough one. Leeds have a specific style of play, man-marking over the whole pitch and makes it proper intense. We have to be ready for that but we have a few days. Hopefully all the other boys now stay healthy in the international games, then they come back and we have three days to work together on that. It was the best pre-season we could have had because we cannot compare and nobody will give us a different one.