July 28, (THEWILL) – Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp, expressed his displeasure with his team’s performance in the 1-0 loss to Salzburg on Wednesday, saying he did not consider the game to be a “friendly.”
The summer additions, Darwin Nunez and Fabio Carvalho, started for the Reds, who fell behind to a goal from Benjamin Sesko in the 31st minute. First-team heavyweights, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, and Mohamed Salah, were all introduced at the hour mark, but came up empty-handed.
In reviewing the game, Klopp highlighted some aggressive Salzburg defence, as well as Liverpool’s own inefficiency in front of goal, with Darwin Nunez frequently playing alone up front. He said: “We were too open, we were too wide, we were not connected enough in moments when you lose the ball. It was not only the young players – all the boys can do much better.
“It doesn’t feel great, but we take it and go from here. We had so many chances and obviously luck didn’t come with us. At least we got into the positions to finish it off, but it’s just a shame we couldn’t do that today. No, for Salzburg it was definitely no friendly. For us not as well.
“Salzburg had these kind of harsh challenges, but they do really well; all respect to Salzburg, they do really well. Sometimes I didn’t like the challenges too much but it’s fine, nothing happened there I think. How I said, first half too many mistakes. We set the boys up and it’s all fine, they can do much better and they had good moments as well.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
