Liverpool Prepare to Face a Brighton Side “Full of Confidence”

In the end, Liverpool’s superior attacking talent saw them away from their match against Aston Villa with a 2-0 victory and all three points, but nobody could have mistaken what was on display over the weekend for an inspired performance.

Manager Jürgen Klopp knows they will need to do better against a Brighton side that has gone 1-1-1 since the return to action, including a victory over Arsenal, and look to be in solid form as they have begun to pull away from the threat of relegation.

“Now since the lockdown they changed their approach a bit,” Klopp said of Liverpool’s next opponents in the Premier League. “They went a bit more for results. You could see that against Norwich, so we don’t know exactly what we will face.

“A team in a good run and pretty much full of confidence about the results they had since the lockdown. We need to be ready for that. First and foremost, I want us to be lively, and I want us to be really solid in protecting the counter-attacks.”

Klopp, though, isn’t too concerned about the specifics of the opponent—not with just two days off between games for his players and another match coming up quickly on Saturday. Instead, the focus will be on simply playing their own game well.

“Whatever setup Brighton will choose they change a lot for the specific opponent, system-wise,” he added. “So against us when we played here, it was kind of a 4-3-2-1, and maybe they will play that again—but we have only two days’ time.

“So I think we cannot prepare for all the possible different systems. Most of the things the boys will have to learn on the pitch and then use our principles, our patterns, and hopefully then it will work out.”