Jurgen Klopp believes the manner of Liverpool’s 4-3 victory over Arsenal in August has set the tone for the rest of the season.
The Reds travelled to the Emirates Stadium to kick off their Premier League campaign for 2016/17, in what proved to be a scintillating clash.
After going behind to a Theo Walcott strike, Philippe Coutinho‘s excellent free-kick set Liverpool on for a four-goal blitz, including a wondergoal from debutant Sadio Mane.
Though Arsenal fought back to make it 4-3, it was a true statement performance from the Reds, as Klopp told the Liverpool Echo‘s James Pearce.
“We felt we had a good team and we showed it at the Emirates. The half an hour we played after half-time was outstanding,” he explained.
“In the first half we didn’t know exactly where we were. Arsenal are a strong team, playing at home.
“We wanted to play differently but we couldn’t and they scored. Then Phil produced a genius free-kick to bring us back into the game.
“Then it was like: ‘okay, now we can actually start’.
“The football we played at the start of the second half was outstanding. It gave us a lot of confidence and was a real boost for the rest of the season.
“It’s not usual that players run towards the coach to celebrate after they’ve scored but with Sadio maybe it was different because he was new.
“For a new player, in the first few weeks the manager is a really important person. You open the door to everything.
“I love how the boys are together in this moment. It’s really good to have that so early in the season.”
Barring a few blips against the likes of Burnley, Bournemouth and West Ham United, Liverpool have largely maintained this over the first half of the season.
This consistency, and unity, stems from their summer in the United States, and Klopp went on to extoll the virtues of their Palo Alto training camp.
“The camp was long but it was really perfect circumstances. Important games,” he recalled.
“I am used to camps. Everyone had asked me: ‘what can we do on this tour?’ I said: ‘what tour?’
“It was really a fight for me: I didn’t want anyone to think for one second that it was a tour, it was a camp.
“If you are in a camp you can make some tours but you go back to the camp.
“That’s what we did. We could have done different things. We could have stayed in Pasadena for three or four days when we played there. But I didn’t want that.
“I wanted a base so we could leave some players in the camp so they could train. We really used that time.
“The target of a camp is always that you go there in one shape and you come back in a better shape.
“You go there as a good team and you come back as a better team.
“That’s why we do things like this. It wasn’t just because of the weather!”
Fitness has been one of the key features of Klopp’s side this season, but the positivity spread throughout the squad has also been hugely influential, and a summer in the US clearly helped.
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