Here is your Liverpool digest for the 16th of December.
The best playmaker for Liverpool
It is critical not to overestimate the outcome of any football friendly. This is especially true in the Dubai Super Cup, where the competition’s regulations allow a club to effectively win or lose a match twice.
On Sunday, this is what happened in Liverpool.
Lyon defeated them 3-1 in regulation time, then 5-3 in the post-game penalty shootout. While this result can be ignored in terms of the Reds’ chances for 2022/23, the manner in which Jurgen Klopp’s team scored their goal should become more common.
At practically every press conference, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp delivers memorable soundbites. Perhaps the most crucial phrase he has ever uttered happened when he stated that “no playmaker in the world can be as excellent as a good counter-pressing situation,” though. Against Lyon, the Reds demonstrated their argument emphatically.
Fabio Carvalho put the finishing touches on the game, scoring within the first 40 seconds. He did, however, play an important role in the build-up. The goal was so ‘Klopp’ that it warranted a thorough examination.
Elliott on the ‘abnormal’ camp
During the current mid-season break, Liverpool’s’strange’ Dubai training camp has been rеvealed by Harvey Elliott.
The Reds have been training for the Premier League’s return to the Middle East in December, and they face AC Milan today after losing to Lyon on Sunday.
Elliott, one of the Reds’ top performers this season with 14 starts and three goals in all competitions, has rеvealed a’strange’ camp that he thinks will lead Jurgen Klopp’s team to a good second half of the season.
“It’s been a good camp as well as a bizarre one,” he said to Sky Sports. “It’s strange to be out here in such Һot weather when, especially in England, it’s so cold with snow and the temperatures are vastly different. It’s been another fantastic experience, and the support we’ve received at the games has been tremendous wherever we go around the world; it’s simply nice to see the boys again and pick up where we left off at the start of the season.
”Hopefully we can take it into the remainder of the season, just keep producing performances, keep getting wins and that is the focus for this camp. Work on things we needed to work on at the start of the season and that’s what we have been doing.”
Robertson admits that Liverpool’s ‘geggenpresse’ has slowed
Liverpool fullback Andrew Robertson believes the team’s training camp in Dubai has included a lot of pressing.
Robertson believes that the Reds’ difficult first half of the season was influenced by the players not pressing hard enough and at the appropriate times.
He told the Liverpool Echo : “We’ve been working a lot on pressing, counter-pressing and choosing our moments because in games we’ve not done that enough at times and in some games, we’ve sort of half-pressed. That is the worst thing you can do because if you go into it and you’re not 100% that’s when teams can pick you off. We’ve done that in a few games this season.
“But then again, in other games we’ve been excellent at it. Manchester City, Ajax, Tottenham; we’ve been looking at all the good games where the pressing came from. We’ve been so good [generally] at sitting in our block, picking our moments and knowing when to press. And if we’ve lost the ball then we have reacted so quickly.
“I think that’s what people would say if you were to ask Liverpool fans or fans of other clubs, you know, ‘how do you describe Liverpool in the last five years?’ I think the answers would be the press offensively, as it’s been so good.
“At times it’s not been good enough this season, so it’s important we try and get that impulse back and get that part of our game to the maximum consistently. At times we’ve done it really well but it’s about being able to make sure we’re all pressing at the same time and on the same page and we can sit back when it’s the right moment. That is where this week has been really beneficial. We’ve worked on it this week, we worked on it against Lyon and I am sure we will do the same against AC Milan and then we will be ready for the season to start again.”