Jurgen Klopp wants to see the same desire and intent from his Liverpool side, who will “make a few changes” for Thursday’s Europa League clash with Toulouse.
The third match of the group stage of the competition sees the Ligue 1 side travel to Anfield in Group E, with United having the highest points tally to date with six points.
Klopp’s men head into the 2022/23 campaign against the French Cup winners on the back of success in the Merseyside derby and the manager has underlined his side’s thirst to keep winning.”Toulouse deserve our respect,” Klopp said at his pre-match press conference on Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s really exciting, winning the French Cup last year and finishing 13th in the league is obviously a big deal.“This is a very young team, a very talented team, a very talented team, a football team. It’s a lot of fun to watch them play and they got it.
But we’ll have to see how they turn out here. We do not know. “Against Paris (Saint-Germain) or Lens, they play differently. In any other game, you can see that they really want to go. We got a point against PSG, which is an important point. “So we have to make sure we’re really prepared. And it’s about us. It is very important.
We really set the tone with our games. If we do that, I’m sure they’ll be looking forward to playing at Anfield. Toulouse players, coaches, stuff like that. Because that’s the plan, we shouldn’t let them enjoy it.“This is a competition and we are not here for a friendly or anything. “We’re really here to win football games and hopefully we can show that.
“With a win over LASK and a home win against Union SG, Liverpool took early control of their group to secure a place in the knockout stages of the Europa League. Klopp responded to his third league win: “It’s true.
Now we have no intention of playing Toulouse at home. So we have to win and we might lose in Toulouse. “We want to win football games and this is our next opportunity, which puts us nine points up and Toulouse four points behind.
But even knowing that didn’t change anything. We have to play our best. “We’ll make a few changes, not a lot, we’ll probably wait and see, but we’ve got to make sure we’re really ready to compete and the guys have shown so far that we’re ready to compete.
That’s what I want to see.”We hope to go on this run for a long time and for that we have to take every decisive step and tomorrow night is huge.”Speaking to the press at Anfield, Klopp was also asked about the current form of Darwin Nunes, who provided an assist for Mohamed Salah to seal Everton’s defeat on Saturday.
“He’s having a great time. Darwin is having a great time,” the boss said. .”Yes, it took some time to adjust to everything – a new country, a new language, a new team. That’s long gone. He is in the middle of the team and everyone is very happy with him and I am very happy with him.”Before the Everton game we had to decide who would start: Lucho Diaz or Darwin.
Darwin suffered some cramps towards the end of his international run so we thought we’d start with Lucho. I talked to both of them and they both agreed. “Lucho’s job was to create, set up and do everything possible to create as many problems as possible, then Darwin came in and finished the game.
That was the idea and it worked very well.“But you could tell it was very intense for him, even though it only lasted 20 minutes. It was the right decision the way I did because it was very intense. It is always difficult for male athletes to make this type of journey before a match. But now I want to say that he is fit not only for this match but also for the next one good.
“Yes, I think he is very happy now, we are very happy with him. At least on the field and on the training ground it is seen that it is very important. “It’s a great time for him.”
