Jürgen Klopp hints at tactical tweaks for “massive fight” at Leeds
The Liverpool boss has had a full week on the training ground to prepare his team for the crucial run-in.
Liverpool will look to end a five-game winless run as they travel to relegation-threatened Leeds United on Monday evening.
Jürgen Klopp’s men are almost certainly out of contention for the Champions League spots but can still finish in the Europa League places if they can turn around their poor run of recent form. However they will look to do so against a Leeds side battling for their lives.
Speaking ahead of the Premier League fixture, Klopp said that he expected Monday’s game to be “a big fight, a massive fight.”
“We expect them to be absolutely on their toes, massive fight, proper atmosphere. It will be a tough one but we have to build now again on two games that were good, in moments really good.”
Free week gave Klopp time on the training ground
In the pre-game press conference Klopp was asked whether he had been able to do anything different during a rare full week between games. Liverpool haven’t played since last Sunday’s draw with Arsenal.
“Of course it’s different,” Klopp replied. “You can go through pretty much everything what is important in football. You can work on defensive stuff, you can work on offensive stuff. You can do finishing, you can even do endurance if you want. You can do everything.”
“It’s a week where you turn into a coach again and not being just a manager to pick the team and set the tactics up and stuff like this. This is proper coaching. I enjoy it a lot.”
Alexander-Arnold could continue in hybrid role
Liverpool mounted an impressive second half comeback to draw with league leaders Arsenal last time out. Many observers noted that right back Trent Alexander-Arnold was deployed in a hybrid role at times, moving infield to contribute more to the Reds’ build up play.
Ahead of the trip to Leeds, Klopp said that he may decide to repeat this in future games.
“It’s just a possibility for us. In [the Arsenal] game it happened more often because we wanted it to happen more often. It was different to other times but it’s good, it suited him.”
“It’s absolutely possible that sometimes we will do it and sometimes not. For him, it was good. Trent, in the second half, with the ball was super-dominant and that was obviously really helpful.”
Liverpool now have a favourable run of fixtures with games against fellow strugglers Nottingham Forest and West Ham United to follow the trip to Leeds.