Jürgen Klopp on Lyon defeat, Matip and Keita return and more
Jürgen Klopp explained the positives to take and lessons to learn for his team from Sunday's 3-1 loss to Olympique Lyonnais.
The Reds suffered defeat in their Dubai Super Cup opener at Al-Maktoum Stadium against the Ligue 1 outfit, who also claimed a bonus point for a 5-3 penalty shootout victory at the end of the game.
Fabio Carvalho gave Klopp's side the lead in the opening minute but, after Mohamed Salah had a spot-kick saved, Alexandre Lacazette levelled the affair up shortly before half-time.
Bradley Barcola gave Lyon their first lead of the evening midway through the second period, with Lacazette scoring again seven minutes before the end.
Read on for a summary of Klopp's post-match press conference...
On the visit to Dubai and friendly matches...
Good, very good... all the facilities we found are great, we are really grateful to the Prince that he gave us the opportunity to train there. It's a fantastic training ground - hotel is top, weather is top. Everything is good apart from the result today and parts of the performance. So far, we enjoyed it here. We stay another few more days, another game and all good.
On whether the players from the World Cup will join the squad...
No, not yet. Darwin Nunez will join us tomorrow and the others... everybody gets a week off after the World Cup to reset mind and body. And then we play pretty quick, 22nd of December we play Man City in the [Carabao] Cup. So, that's as tough as it gets and yeah that's it.
On how he has found the World Cup break...
We spoke a lot about that. For me, it was very good because I had three weeks off and now we train - but it's for the players. The [World Cup] final is the 18th of December and 22nd - OK, the cup competition starts again - 26th, 30th, 2nd, 5th or 6th of January. So, [games are] coming thick and fast. So that's the problem, it's not for me a problem - it never was.
On the defeat against Lyon...
The start of the game from us was really good, I liked a lot of parts in the first half. I saw what we were working on in the training sessions so far. Really aggressive, played well, good connected, could have scored a second one and then we concede the equaliser with a misunderstanding between Robbo and Caoimhin. Not cool - but can happen, obviously. Second half we had to change a lot [and] with all the things we did in training it was clear 60 minutes is the maximum what anybody can play. And then we were really young and not well organised anymore. Let me say it like this, when we lost the ball then it ended up in front of our goal. Every ball we lost was a counter-attack and was pretty much a big chance, that's of course not how it should look, but that's a learning curve and we will use this game to learn from.
On Joel Matip's return to action...
Very important, absolutely very important. Yeah, so far he did pretty much everything in training. There was one session where we got advice to rest him a little bit, but it was not from him, it was from the medical department, [so] that's what we did. Apart from that he could do everything. Looked good today, 45 minutes was again what we were allowed to use him. That's what we did. That's good. Naby's first 30 minutes, I think, for a while. Very helpful as well, important position, important player, so that was [what] we should only use him [for], 30 minutes. I think against AC Milan next Friday they are probably able to play a bit longer.
On whether the message to the players from the coaching staff is to try to restart the season quickly...
That's the plan... we want to chase; we want to be really ready immediately. That's why we have to use the time now, we have to train [and] really give the boys proper intensity in training and again, that's why I was really happy with big parts of the first half. Knowing... seeing if this is the right direction, 100 per cent. It was not always the case in the summer preparation, but we played the game tonight [and] I saw a lot of the things I wanted to see. So, I'm positive, but of course we play tough, tough teams. We start with Man City and then we play against Aston Villa with still a new manager. They will be highly energised, so that's all clear, we know that, but we want to be, again, the most difficult team to play against and it's up to us to be that.