Klopp Focused on Fitness in Community Shield Preparation

Photo by Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

The manager plans to take advantage of the six substitutions he’s allowed.

Tomorrow’s FA Community Shield match up comes less than a week before the Premier League season begins. Jürgen Klopp wants to win the trophy, but he’s also keenly aware of the fact that many of his top players have had intense summers with their national teams. He’s looking to balance playing their best with the well-being of his team, and one of the big ways he plans to do that is through making good use of his six available substitutions.

Klopp isn’t world renowned for his prolific substitutions during the regular season, but it seems that this final pre-season match will be an exception.

“The good thing is we can have six substitutions, that’s really good,” he said in the press conference before the match.

“We’ll make a squad for the game, not for the season. We will find the line-up, for sure. We will find a starting line-up where you can change six times in that early a game in the season against a very demanding opponent who asks for a lot of footwork and runs and all that stuff. We will probably use all six [subs].”

Sadio Mane, who has just arrived back with the team, will not feature in this game either, but we likely will see more of Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino.

The Community Shield game, and Liverpool’s season kicks off Sunday at 3PM BST/10AM EST.

Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com