Jürgen Klopp is hopeful an emphasis on gaining consistency during his first pre-season at Liverpool will come to fruition during this campaign, starting at Arsenal on Sunday. Klopp has used the summer to get his squad up to speed with a variety of solutions to combat the opposition’s changing tactics.
“Different things have influence on consistency – the style of play, the shape, the injury situation … a lot of things,” said Klopp.
“The biggest advantage Leicester had last year was not that they didn’t have to play that many games, because they could have had injuries with fewer games, but they could play nearly the whole season with the same team.
“That helps if it’s good – and the team was obviously good and they came into a run.”
“All of this is difficult because it’s the Premier League and your own shape is only one of the things that is important, the shape of the other team is pretty important too.
“That’s what we’ve tried to do in pre-season – to be more independent to the style of play of the other team. If they defend deep, we cannot change it – we cannot say, ‘come on, it’s boring, give us a little bit of space to play’.
“If they only play counter-attack, if they play high-pressure, all that stuff, you need to always have a solution. That’s what we were working on.
“In general, and now in this week, we thought about things we have to do especially in the Arsenal game.”
Liverpool blew hot and cold last season and twice good runs came to an abrupt end, in frustrating displays away at Swansea City and Southampton, with both matches ending in defeat.
“Consistency is the only way to be successful,” said Klopp. “All of these big jumps in performance, up and down, don’t help. It’s possible because we are all human beings and things can happen that should not happen too often.”
Klopp, could be without his striker Daniel Sturridge and midfielder James Milner through injury for the trip to Emirates Stadium, where Brendan Rodgers’s Liverpool side drew 0-0 almost a year ago. Sturridge missed Liverpool’s final two pre-season fixtures with a hip injury that flared up again at training on Thursday, while Milner has a damaged heel.
