Klopp unhappy despite Reds friendly win

Jurgen Klopp was not happy with Liverpool’s first-half display as they brushed aside Fleetwood Town in pre-season on Wednesday.

Marko Grujic, Ben Woodburn, Lucas Leiva and Roberto Firmino all scored as the Premier League side proved their dominance over the League One outfit.

Liverpool’s three summer signings – Sadio Mane, Loris Karius and Joel Matip – all started, while a number of the club’s youngsters impressed the manager.

Klopp made 11 changes at half-time with Liverpool only leading 1-0, before their superiority showed in the second half.

After the game, the German said: “I take a few good things from the game. We have to work, but I saw a few good things. The chances we created, of course, and I saw a few good defensive actions as well.

“There were good individual performances, but I said at half-time that I was not happy with the team play because I thought we could have done better.

“In a game like this, if the only good situations you have are because of the individual quality of the player then something is wrong.

“In the first half I was not too happy with the performance because of course we are the better team, we have the better players.

“In the second half they changed, we changed – in that [second period] we tried to use information from the first half in it and we scored nice goals.

“We scored the goals in the second half because of nice passes, nice runs, easy passes. That is how football should work. We did that better in the second half.

“Games like this, against teams like Fleetwood, you have to be ready to find the solution. Sometimes we found the solution, sometimes not.

“In pre-season, you have to really show the intensity of training in your games. I think we can do better, but we have to learn. You won’t have easy games in the Premier League and so we have to create situations where it is not so easy for the boys.”

A number of Liverpool’s senior players, including Joe Allen, are yet to return to training after their exertions at Euro 2016 and Klopp looks forward to welcoming them back.

“The first three weeks we train with one group, and then another joins and we have to find a way to bring these two groups together.

“All the players who are not with us now are important players, so we need to bring them in and see what we can do. We have to work, and we will work.

He added: “I don’t want to say it (pre-season) is hard, but it’s very important. Last season, we had no time to train really. This year we will have a bit more maybe.

“I want to see things we’re doing in training even when they are tired, you have to fight against your body, maybe against your brain. If a little voice tells you you’re tired you have to say ‘shut up’ and go on.”