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The Japanese attacker has starred in the past week as the Reds prepare to defend their Premier League title
Jurgen Klopp is hopeful that Takumi Minamino can bring his preseason form into the new campaign after starring for Liverpool in their 7-2 friendly win over Blackpool.
Salzburg’s January signing scored in last week’s Community Shield loss to Arsenal and scored again at Bloomfield Road on Saturday.
Minamino started just behind Roberto Firmino in a 4-2-3-1 formation and prepared the Brazilian for Liverpool’s third goal as he recovered from two goals against.
And Klopp is happy to see the Japanese striker find his place at Liverpool ahead of next week’s Premier League opener at home to Leeds United.
“I hope [he takes confidence from this]”Klopp told the club’s official website.” Clearly, that’s what you always hope for.
“It’s important to Taki and important to us, but it’s about everyone together, so I think about overall performance. Individuals can always shine when everything else works, that’s right.
“If you just have these individual flashes here and there, it really doesn’t work. So we have to work to win soccer games.
“So who scores isn’t very important. But for Taki, of course, it was a pretty nice seven or eight days, of course.”
– Goal (@goal) September 5, 2020
Liverpool found themselves two goals behind against the League One club with 33 minutes played and Klopp admitted he was dissatisfied with his team’s display in the first half.
“It was because of the lack of aggression on our side, a lack of desire a bit for this game, that’s right, playing,” he said.
“The goals we concede, yes, they are mistakes, it’s typical of preseason games. But so far I think we concede practically all the goals in similar situations; losing the ball in preparation, then it’s a counterattack, it’s practically a free opportunity .
“We know it and it is clear that we cannot do it like this. We have to improve that. But we have another week to have fresher legs, again an intense week. We have to use the weeks, we cannot change that.
“I would love to have always fresh guys with super fresh legs at games, but that can only work during the year when you do the hard work in preseason.
“That’s what we’re doing. We scored a good goal after a good set piece in the first half, then everything else was more or less as it should be.” [in the second half] – much more aggressive and we could bring other fresh legs. That helped, obviously. “
Six of Liverpool’s goals came in the second half, with teenage winger Harvey Elliott among the scorers.
Fulham academy player Elliott started eight games in all competitions last season and Klopp, like many others, expects great things from this versatile youngster.
“It’s in his hands. I liked the offers he made today much more; he was very sharp, fast, he offered different races than he usually does,” said Klopp.
“On the inside, this kid is a playmaker, he can be a playmaker, but he also has to be a spiker. You have to be a striker, you have to be a defender and all that.
“That is what we are all trying to imagine to bring him onto the court, and that is good of course. It was very good for him to score this goal today.”
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