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Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images
The camp in Dubai is helping to prepare players for a restart of competitive club football, with Liverpool facing Manchester City on December 22 in the Carabao Cup.
The Liverpool squad members who are not involved in the World Cup are preparing for the return to competitive club football at a training camp in Dubai. And Jurgen Klopp has emphasized that the camp will foster “togetherness” for a squad that has not been at its best this season.
“It would be silly if we just go here and then you train and go in the room and go for food and go in the room again. That makes no sense because the main strength you get over the years [is] from your bond, from togetherness, from how much you want to do it for each other – and that’s what we use here as well, that’s clear”, said Klopp.
“You cannot just go on the training pitch six hours a day and say, ‘That’s it, let’s start playing football.’ We need to find reasons why this makes more sense for us to win than for others, and that always happens not [only] on the training pitch but very much off the pitch.”
Planning for players returning from the World Cup will prove tricky depending on how far each of them advance in the tournament with their national squad. Virgil van Dijk and Alisson were eliminated last night, and either one of Jordan Henderson and Ibrahima Konate will advance to the next stage depending on the outcome of their game tonight.
“It’s different and difficult to really deal with it but that’s what we have to see when the boys are coming back. We have to talk to them and then we will see and we have to assess pretty much everything”, explained Klopp.
“And from there we go. But the challenge is that you play and have the first competitive game four days after the final – but we know it now long enough and that’s all fine. So we have a group here together and this is the group we will go [with] in the first game. And then from there we will see who is available and who is ready.”
