EMRE CAN admits he faces a fight to force his way back into Jürgen Klopp’s first-team plans.
The Germany international, 22, made only his third appearance of an injury-hit start to the season in Tuesday’s League Cup win at Derby County.
An ankle injury hasn’t helped Can’s cause and he was also one of the latest players to return to pre-season training after his Euro 2016 involvement, allowing other players to nip ahead of him as Liverpool’s season got underway.
He may have been a favourite of Klopp’s last season, but he now has to fight his way back past captain Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana — who has been a revelation after being reinvented in a deeper role than he is used to — and £25million summer signing Georginio Wijnaldum.
“They have done it very well,” Can said in reference to the midfield threesome.
“Adam, Hendo and Gini have played well together and you can see by the results and the good football.
“Every player has to start from zero and myself as well. Now I am fit, if I get game-time I want to show myself again and also in training.
“We bought very good players and everyone is nearly fit and we have a strong squad. If you saw the last few games, we were very strong and we have to keep it up.”
Klopp has spoken of wanting healthy competition for places at Liverpool, encouraging players to up their levels to get regular first-team football.
And Can added: “If you play with good players, the levels go up — it is normal. It’s not easy but I have to be patient. I try to train hard and if I get game-time then I try to play well and then we will see what happens.”
Klopp made seven changes for the trip to Derby yet Liverpool won at a canter, and the manager has admitted he has some selection headaches to deal with when Hull arrive at Anfield on Saturday.
Summer signing Ragnar Klavan returned to the team to give Dejan Lovren a break on Tuesday and scored his first goal for the club. But he is unlikely to make the team-sheet at the weekend, with Lovren set to return to the starting 11.
Klavan said: “We have a really good team so everyone is really focused even if they don’t play every week but you saw (against Derby) if they get a chance everyone wants to show for the manager.”
There is even competition in goal, where Loris Karius made his debut after recovering from a broken finger.
Klopp is sticking to the line that there is no official first-choice between the sticks, suggesting it is a straight fight based on performances between the Germany international, a £4.7m summer signing from Mainz, and Simon Mignolet.
Perhaps with that in mind, Karius was deep down disappointed that he didn’t have more opportunity to showcase his talent against Nigel Pearson’s side.
It was a one-sided game against the Rams, although Karius’ high starting position didn’t go unnoticed among fans, particularly when he was quickly out to beat Darren Bent to a loose ball.
It helped him get a vote of confidence from Klavan.
“I knew it already in Bundesliga, he was a really good keeper and was quick to come out,” said the Estonian, a former centre-back with German club Augsburg.
“We are moving forward as a whole team and as a last line we have to be higher and it is nice when you have a keeper who is able to come out.
“I can only say what he was in the Bundesliga and what I have seen in training. He is good with his feet, he is quick coming out and he is not afraid to come out for high balls and everything so in my eyes he is a really good keeper.
“I can hear him (talking to players).”
Sorry guys but this new site is a definite step in the wrong direction. Whoever coded it has a lot of work to do because it has extreme lag on mobile. I always liked this site as opposed to the ultra hefty load of TIA, but it looks like you have chosen to go in the same direction. My vote would be to revert back to the old site or at rhe very least drastically increase the new site’s performance.
New site is working fine now (on PC) and loading much more quickly than the old one too. The redesign is very nice (but what is that LA Galaxy player doing as the background?)
I like the new look lads; clean, crisp, sharp, reflects just how Liverpool are playing right now. No lag for me on iPad.
What a squad we have right now, just in the midfield itself we have some brilliant options. Any 3 from Henderson, Lallana, Can, Wijnaldam, Grujic, Lucas and England’s Kev Stewart would work really well. We don’t yet have the very top quality of Gerrard, Alonso and Mascherano but watching these lads develop into the greats they could become is exciting and pleases me nearly as much as seeing the finished article. Enjoyed the short ride so far and I think this season could be an absolute cracker. One to remember lads, one to remember.
Always love the articles, but the new site seems to have a big lag time on mobiles. Hope this can be fixed.
I was intrigued to read this so I then tried it on my iphone. Works really well, better than the old one.
We (my work) recently developed a new app rather than a site and went for this flat look. We did a hell of a lot of work to make sure it was fast on mobile devices. We were made up with it. Then we got a complaint that it was barely usable in Australia. Turned out because they were so far from the servers it slowed it right down. We got around it by mirroring the servers in Asia and North America. Out of interest, what’s your location? Apologies for asking, these kind of things interest me for my own interest / work rather than for TAW.
As Can touched on the keeper, so will I.
I feel I’m in Mike Nevin’s camp. If Mignolet is on the team sheet I’ll be ok with that. If it’s Karius I’ll be apprehensive. He hasn’t had chance to prove himself yet so it’s unfair to say he’s unproven for us but things are going well at the minute. I see no reason to disrupt that at this present time.
Another thing that struck my mind reading this. Can mentioned the squad is nearly all fit. I thought by now all our players were supposed to be breaking down with muscle injuries from Klopp’s intensive training methods. The 4th phase was it? A couple of run of the mill injuries a few weeks ago and he was back on Twitter with the look at me I told you so bollocks. Doesn’t seem to have manifested though and he’s crawled back under his shell.