Jurgen Klopp has shared his relief at Liverpool’s last match before the September international break not being the ‘rock bottom’ heavy 4-1 defeat to Napoli. Returning to domestic action on Saturday at home to Brighton & Hove Albion, Klopp has warned his players that the performance they put in against Ajax is the minimum he expects as Liverpool look to kickstart their campaign ahead of a run of 13 matches in six weeks before the World Cup.
Jurgen Klopp said: “Napoli was rock bottom. We’ve only had Ajax game since then. I would have loved to play Wolves after that. Even after two days. It’s a moment where you want to show immediate reaction. ‘Come on!’ Reaction. But we couldn’t, but we could show a reaction against Ajax. And it was a reaction, a clear reaction. Everybody in the stadium was between joy and relief, I would say. At least that’s how I felt. I really liked the game but it was a relief as well. We brought it on the pitch. That’s what we wanted to do. If we do that again, we are definitely on the right way. This is the basis, the lowest level allowed. Intensity-wise, focus-wise. A lot of different things, this should be the lowest level. It was good, really good. We expect a lot from ourselves. You don’t have to tell us we need more points and need to fight for this and that. We want to do that, but we didn’t so far. That’s now the basis we’re coming from, Ajax is the basis. Now we have to do it again and better.”
