Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has explained that his decision to take his squad on a warm weather training trip to Marbella is driven by the opportunity to replicate more realistic game conditions similar to Manchester United’s training camp in the United Arab Emirates recently.
Following their impressive 5-0 dismantling of FC Porto, the Red’s headed straight to the Spanish resort rather than back home and Klopp highlighted the benefits of the camp to his players.
He said:
We are here to train, as you can see. It’s the day after the game, the boys who played did a shorter session and the rest of the boys trained for a couple of hours.
That’s the reason we’re here.
It’s also because it’s a change of circumstances, the light is different obviously, and I thought for all the things we have to do now – like working a little bit on different systems and stuff like that – it made sense that we can do it in shorts and with real light!
Whilst the manager has come under some scrutiny for the chopping and changing in his lineups, he insists it has allowed him to keep players legs fresh, which in turn allows him to employ a more settled lineup heading into the business end of the season.
We made our rotation in the winter – in November and December – to be now 100% fit,” said the manager, when quizzed about that possibility.
Now we are 100% fit the best players will play all the time… Adam Lallana has been in and out, in and out but now he is in and hopefully it stays like this because he is very important for us and is another option.
Ingsy and Dom Solanke made pressure like crazy, it’s really good.Ragnar Klavan was unlucky with getting really ill and then a little bit injured in the moment when Virgil came in, but he is still a fantastic player. We need all of these players and hopefully we have them all available and then we will make a decision, but it’s not that I think now we will rotate before or after. We go for everything.
Liverpool do not feature again until February 24th when they take on West Ham in the Premier League.
