Jurgen Klopp has insisted that Liverpool need to take a different approach to pre-season during the summer as the club look to bounce back from a difficult campaign.
The Reds have endured a disappointing 2022/23 season, failing to compete for the Premier League title or any of the cup competitions. This difficult campaign, and the club’s players’ fitness issues, has come off the back of an extremely busy 2021/22 in which Liverpool won the FA Cup, Carabao Cup, came within one point of the Premier League title, and lost the UEFA Champions League final to Real Madrid.
As they plan for the upcoming pre-season, while Liverpool are yet to officially confirm their full plans, they will spend at least one week at a training camp in Germany before going on another overseas tour, which is expected to take them back to Singapore.
Klopp has expressed his determination to avoid a repeat of last season’s challenges and ensure that the team is ready for the new campaign.
“It’s completely normal, you cannot compare it,” the German said when asked if Liverpool have different pre-season plans to last year.
“Last season we went to all the finals and played until the last day. But I cannot tell the boys then ‘two weeks and I’ll see you again for training’ – that’s just not possible. So you have to squeeze each minute out.
“But then we planned the pre-season at that time, who could know…yes, we can always think we’re going to be in the Champions League final, but we have to plan it early and usually you have to plan without the Champions League final because that doesn’t happen constantly, you just have to deal with it. And that is what we did, we dealt with it.
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“But then we started in Thailand and pretty much playing immediately because we had to and then the boys came back step by step by step and then it was never a perfect pre-season but that is not the reason for our season now because before that we had similar pre-seasons.
“But this year must be different. So we have now already three, four five weeks – I don’t know how long – without international football. Usually you play all the time. Now we play a lot – I actually have no clue where they would have put in the Champions League games [if Liverpool had progressed to the semi-finals this season].
“But it’s different and that’s why we have to step up. We have to step up. And we have to prepare that in the pre-season and that’s why I want them back together as quick as somehow possible, respecting the necessity of holidays.
“I know that and I respect that and I want them to go on holiday for as long as possible but for this year we have to make sure we are together as soon as possible and can go from there.”
Liverpool’s season will come to an end with their Premier League trip to Southampton on May 28th, followed by international fixtures from June 12th to 20th.
Players who are not involved with their countries during this period will report back to the AXA Training Centre on July 8th, while the rest of the team will return before the end of the week.
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