Liverpool's pre-season training under Jurgen Klopp sounds exceptionally difficult, with weeks worth of gruelling double - and sometimes triple - sessions. The Sunday Times shed light on Klopp's training methods a year ago, as he built the foundations necessary for Liverpool to gegnpress their way up the league:
A witness described "strewn bodies and players panting and choking back vomit" but also learning to take masochistic pleasure in Klopp's methods. The squad would sit after dinner speculating with grim smiles about what horrors he had next in store for them.
The Liverpool players rarely get much time off during holidays, either. Klopp has everybody at the club in a WhatsApp group, notionally to maintain squad unity, but it also helps Klopp assume a kind of Big Brother role.
The details of the existence of such a group were relayed to Melissa Reddy of Goal.com in a recent interview. While there is an element of team bonding about the group, it does have more practical uses for the Liverpool manager, too:
Last year, some players sent in footage of themselves on the treadmill as an update on their efforts to stay in shape. That received the response ‘ah interesting, so you think that is what running is? Incorrect,’ from Klopp.
He provided reasons as to why he didn’t want them on those machines, and this time around, the imagery posted was of cardiovascular work being done on beaches, tracks, and in parks.
Message received.
While many of the Liverpool players have evinced an affinity with Klopp over the past couple of years - the image that comes to mind are the great big bear hugs he has reserved for Adam Lallana -we'd hazard a guess that there might be a separate group of which Klopp is not a member which is particularly busy when he is peppering players with fitness tips while they're on holiday.
It's a good interview, and it's well worth reading here.
