Liverpool

Jurgen Klopp to experiment with formations during pre-season

By Daniel Lewis, Senior Reporter | 02 July 2017

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp outlines his intentions for the club's upcoming pre-season tour, where he will look to make his players "more flexible" tactically.

Jurgen Klopp has revealed that he intends to use Liverpool's pre-season campaign as a chance to experiment with a variety of different formations.

The Reds enjoyed relative success in the Premier League last season with a 4-3-3 system, used to get the most out of their energetic forward players.

Klopp could be tempted to alter the shape slightly come the start of 2017-18, however, as he aims to utilise the threat of new recruits Mohamed Salah and Dominic Solanke, who have joined from AS Roma and Chelsea respectively so far this summer.

"Tactically-wise, getting more flexible - depending who is there and when - and introducing different systems," he told the club's official website when asked about his aims for pre-season. "[In 2015-16], we played most of the time kind of 4-2-3-1, [in 2016-17] most of the time 4-3-3 or 4-5-1. In our opinion, it fitted best to the players we had.

"I'm not sure which way we have to play next year, there will be a few different ones. And we'll prepare for European football also, so we need a bigger squad of course. We'll be good. I'm looking forward to it. Usually you always want to take the next step from one year to the next year.

"You have to see how things fit and when the new players are in. Young players are one year older, that doesn't make the biggest difference but being one year longer involved in the first team. They can make big steps because they are a little bit settled in a good way.

"They feel not as excited anymore about each day in training, thinking 'Oh my god, that's Adam Lallana next to me' and things like this. That can be a big difference. You have to probably make one or two steps back to then make five or six steps in the right direction. They are the same objectives."

Liverpool, who finished 17 points off champions Chelsea last season in fourth place, begin the new campaign with a trip to Watford on August 12.