Jürgen Klopp delighted with Luis Díaz’s pre-season

After missing most of last season with a knee injury, the Colombian winger is back at his best and scored Liverpool’s third in Tuesday’s 3-4 defeat to Bayern Munich in Singapore.

Luis Díaz was in fine form in Tuesday’s friendly against Bayern Munich. The Colombian entered the game in the second half and his influence was almost immediate. Reds manager Jürgen Klopp was very satisfied with the level of the winger and highlighted his goal in “a very difficult game”.

“The pre-season is massive for everybody, and for Lucho especially. You could say today it was really hard. I thought we played super in the first 10 minutes or so and then we were really in the game, bam, bam, bam, everything was clicking and then you could see the players probably had a look at the watch and thought, ‘It’s only 10 minutes, feels like an hour and 50,’” Klopp said afterwards.

Luis Díaz scored his second goal of the pre-season at Singapore National stadium - a fiercely-struck shot that flew past Bayern keeper Sven Ulreich. The Colombian was brought on at the start of the second half in a triple substitution, entering alongside Darwin Núñez and Konate with Jota, Matip and Mac Allister making way.

Klopp happy

Despite the defeat - Liverpool’s first of the pre-season, Klopp was happy with what he saw. “We did a lot of things in the physical aspect of the game today; it was a super-important session as well, to get through this. And yes, Luis is no shadow of a doubt” he continued. Also on the scoresheet against Bayern were Cody Gakpo and new team skipper Virgil van Dijk. “We scored really good goals in the first half as well – so, Diogo’s pass and quick awareness and reaction to Cody, fantastic. We had a lot of really good, good moments where we showed what is possible. It’s good because we will not be as tired during the season like we were today – there will obviously be moments where we feel the intensity and then you have to still make the right decisions,” he said.

As for the intensity of the game, the coach said he was not in the least surprised: “I think it was pretty clear when you set up a game in that period with two teams who are pretty competitive, two managers who are pretty competitive then I think it’s pretty clear that it has to be intense. I saw a lot of good things, but of course some things which I didn’t like and now we have to make an analysis. That’s always in pre-season the same: we need to have a look what is really physically, because we did a lot in training and yesterday a lot in really tough circumstances. And you saw the goals we conceded were mainly down to a lack of concentration,” he concluded.

Liverpool brought up their 15th goal of the pre-season against Bayern which is encouraging news for Klopp in terms of how his attack is shaping up for the new season. This summer’s preparations were similar to last year’s - five friendlies against top level opposition, although last year the Reds also had the Community Shield clash with Manchester City.

Klopp and his men wrap up the pre-season on Monday with one final friendly, against Darmstadt 98, who were recently promoted to the Bundesliga. After that the focus will be on the start of the Premier League, in which Liverpool face Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on the opening day.