The Belgian scored a magical goal to knock the Reds out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp needed no reminders of Eden Hazard’s potency as he looks to stop the Chelsea star for a second time this week.
The Belgian came off the bench to bag an excellent solo goal to lift the Blues to a 2-1 Carabao CupVictory at Anfield in midweek, ending Liverpool’s perfect start to the season.
The two teams fielded largely second-string line-ups but will be back to full strength at Saturday teatime ahead of a heated Premier League encounter with Eden Hazard set to start.
Klopp said: “I know exactly how good he is! Eden Hazard is a special player, obviously, and he enjoys these one-on-one situations or one versus two or three situations, he enjoys it.I didn’t need that game to know about Eden, it was already clear before.”
The German refused to confirm whether Virgil van Dijk would be available to face Maurizio Sarri’s Chelsea, who dropped points for the first time this season after drawing a blank at West Ham last week.
Klopp added: “With Virgil we have to wait. He hasn’t trained so far with the team but I can’t say any more about that.”
Asked whether their first defeat of the campaign impacted morale in the squad, Klopp said: “It’s not cool, it’s not what you want. We shouldn’t be surprised things like this can happen especially against a really strong side when you don’t use your chances. Of course, immediately afterwards it’s not good but then you have two days in this case to get back on track. That’s worked so far. We go to Chelsea and try our best again. But in games like this you can never be sure you get the result you want, you have to work for it and once again we try.”
Liverpool have won their opening six top-flight fixtures but that will be put to the test in the next couple of weeks as they follow up the Chelsea clash by welcoming champions Manchester City to Merseyside.
In-between they travel to face Napoli in the Champions League in midweek.
Klopp added: “Before we started it was clear that a game against Chelsea at Chelsea will not be a children’s birthday or whatever, that’s pretty intense.
“Then we go to Naples which is a tough place to go and then Man City coming.
“It’s an interesting month, to be honest. But so far, so good and the boys are fully in it and ready to go.”