Jurgen Klopp has once again put the Premier League in the firing line as he reiterated his criticism of the fixture calendar.
The Reds begin their campaign on Sunday with Community Shield against Manchester City at Wembley, before starting their top-flight campaign at home to Norwich City five days later.
Liverpool will be without Sadio Mane at the weekend with the winger returning for training on Monday after featuring in the Africa Cup of Nations final on July 19.
They prepared for the season with Alisson Becker, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah missing until the start of this week due to international commitments.
By comparison, the Spanish and German leagues start on the weekend of August 17 while Italy's Serie A kicks off the following week.
And Klopp believes the English top flight should have a longer summer break.
“Somebody has to start this discussion,” said the Reds boss. “I spoke to (Napoli boss) Carlo Ancelotti. Italy has 20 teams as well and starts the season on August 24.
“(Kalidou) Koulibaly, who played with Sadio at the African Cup of Nations has four weeks holiday. He’s not even close to coming back.
“They have 20 teams as well. I don’t know why we start that early. Next year we have the European Championships and Copa America and we start the same week as this in England. I don’t know why.
“The Premier League is such a wonderful product, everybody will watch it anyway. We don’t need these weeks where nobody in the whole world is playing, only the Premier League. It doesn’t make sense.
“I love football but somebody has to think about the players and nobody is. From time to time I start a discussion and people say he’s looking for excuses. I’m not, but we have to think about these things, especially in England.”
Klopp admits Liverpool may benefit in the short-term from Salah, Firmino and Mane being still sharp after such a brief break – although preventing burnout will be difficult.
“Yeah, that’s the only positive and Sadio had 16 days,” he said. “So they don’t lose that much, not like a seven-week break, that’s different. Three weeks, 16 days, they should be okay.
“There’ll be international breaks but they’ll have to play qualifiers.”
