Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp admits he is under pressure to deliver trophies this season after spending big in the transfer market. Klopp has spent more than £170m this summer bolstering his squad with four new signings – Naby Keita, Fabinho, Xherdan Shaqiri and Alisson. The German has yet to win silverware with the Reds and he acknowledges he is under pressure to end the club’s barren spell, having lost three major finals during his time at Anfield.
“I cannot give guarantees here but I understand if people think that. I know about the expectations and that is completely normal,” said Klopp. “First of all we have to play the football that gives us an opportunity to win something. We cannot talk about winning something before we start the season. I am confident we can build on last season. It’s not that we lost things completely but you have to work on it to get it back. The football the boys played last year was not easy. There was a lot of work invested into playing like that. That’s what we will do again. I am not in doubt about our basis or that we will reach it again.
“Other teams, of course, will do transfer business as well. They will not be weaker than last year. City brought in (Riyad) Mahrez. I did not hear that they lost one player so far. So it means the quality of last year plus Mahrez. That’s a nice plan as well. United will go for it, too, and that’s completely normal. We expect more from ourselves. We will go again for the championship and each kind of cup but that does not mean I can sit here and we will get it. We have the highest ambitions, 100 per cent.”
Klopp has urged Liverpool fans to give the club’s new signings time to adapt to the Premier League.
“I want to have the best start ever but we all know something can happen and it is all questioned in a second,” he said. “I am in the third season and each season we have a period where a few people questioned me or our progress and all that stuff and in the end it was OK. I am prepared for these moments. I don’t want to have them but I will not go nuts and think we have lost everything. The new players will make us stronger 100 per cent. But it will not happen in the first day. It is all about staying calm, looking at the situation, judging it right and then make the step.”
Joel Matip’s injury during Liverpool’s 3-1 loss to Dortmund was the “most negative thing about the day” in Jurgen Klopp’s eyes. The defender limped off 22 minutes into the pre-season friendly, three games after returning to play following surgery on an injury that cut short his 2017/18 season.
Klopp said the source of pain on Sunday was a different complaint that appeared to be a small muscle tear . “It’s not the same injury. It’s another muscle – it looks like, hopefully, only a little tear,” the manager told liverpoolfc.com at a post-match press conference. “We will see, but we cannot say any more about it now. It is, of course, the most negative thing about the day. It’s not cool. Things like this can happen, but you don’t want them to.”
Now Joel Matip will miss the rest of Liverpool’s pre-season tour of the United States after suffering a muscle injury during the defeat by Borussia Dortmund.Liverpool have confirmed the Cameroon international has suffered a muscle injury and will now return to Merseyside to continue his rehabilitation.