Liverpool are back on home soil after a short break in Barcelona over the Bank Holiday weekend.
Jurgen Klopp and his players flew out to Spain to make the most of a rare gap between fixtures following their hard-fought 1-0 win over Brentford on Saturday.
That game was the Reds third in six days and April and early May has been a busy period for the club as they have made a late surge to remain in the hunt for a place in the top-four.
An eight-game unbeaten streak has seen them win six successive matches, which is their best run of form all season, but how have previous mid-season trips helped Klopp and his players upon their return to Merseyside?
The ECHO takes a closer look at some of the previous jaunts undertaken by Klopp and his team.
Tenerife 1
Explaining his decision to take the team to Tenerife in March 2016, Klopp said: "First of all, the weather is not too good at the moment in Liverpool so we can train in Tenerife - it’s a little bit better.
"We have wind, so we feel a little bit familiar, but we have sun so everything for training is really perfect, 20 degrees or something like this. They work hard and then we have time for the family in a really nice place. Until now, it’s close to perfect to be honest."
Liverpool headed to Tenerife on the back of a 3-2 defeat to Southampton but saw results improve on their return to Merseyside. A 1-1 draw with Tottenham at Anfield was followed up with three consecutive wins - including a 4-0 win over Everton in Klopp's first Merseyside derby.
Tenerife 2
A year later, Klopp then allowed the players' families to come along on their trip to Tenerife as the German looked to boost his squad's morale during an international break. This time, the Reds boss and the team were put up in the exclusive five-star Bahia Del Duque .
"It’s a wonderful opportunity that the club gave us, that we can bring all the families with us here, that we have this time and can combine different things," said Klopp. The trip worked a charm as Liverpool returned home fresh to put Everton to the sword with a 3-1 win in the 228th Merseyside derby on April 1.
A disappointing home draw with Bournemouth followed before back-to-back victories against Stoke and West Brom.
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La Manga
Liverpool visited then champions Leicester City after their jaunt to La Manga in February 2017. The Foxes had just sacked Claudio Ranieri and the home side appeared to have a point to prove after critics questioned their efforts in the final days of the Italian's reign.
Danny Drinkwater struck a superb volley either side of a Jamie Vardy double to give Leicester a 3-1 win on February 27. However Liverpool's subsequent results showed a squad re-energised. A 3-1 win against Arsenal gave the Reds' top-four tilt the shot in the arm it needed, before they followed it up with another win at home to Burnley and a pulsating draw away to Manchester City.
Klopp's side would finish the campaign with an all-important place in the top four that signalled the return of Champions League football for the first time in three years.
Dubai 1
Liverpool's first trip to Dubai, undertaken after knocking Everton out of the FA Cup in January 2018, featured less football work than previous mid-season breaks, with Klopp keen to give his squad a breather after a jam-packed fixture list of December.
Aside from the usual recovery sessions following a match, it was a case of rest and relaxation for the Reds in the United Arab Emirates. The Reds had enjoyed a nine-day rest by the time they hosted Pep Guardiola's Manchester City and saw the benefits as they went 4-1 up on the day before holding on to take all three points.
A stirring second-half to that campaign saw Klopp's men march all the way to the Champions League final in Kiev, beating Porto and City once more - in both legs - before edging out Roma in the semi-finals. They eventually fell to Real Madrid in Ukraine.
Marbella
The end of the season in 2019 would see Liverpool have nearly three weeks between fixtures as they prepared for a second Champions League final in as many seasons, this time against Tottenham Hotspur in Madrid's Wanda Metropolitano on June 1.
Klopp used the gap between fixtures to prepare for the biggest match of the season in Spain. A friendly was arranged with Benfica's B team, who were requested to mirror the tactics employed by Spurs at the time.
The fixture was arranged by Liverpool's sporting director, Julian Ward, who was then the head of loan pathways at the club. Through his contacts in Portuguese football, Ward called in a favour from Pedro Marques at Benfica as a 35-man contingent arrived from Lisbon to Marbella. A 2-0 win was enough to boost the confidence ahead of that eventual triumph over Mauricio Pochettino's men that secured a sixth European Cup.
“We were all supporting them,” Marques later told Goal about the 2019 final. “We were a tiny part of their preparation, so we were all very excited. All the boys were in the WhatsApp group sharing their thoughts. They were sending pics from where they were watching the final, some of them had their Liverpool shirts on from Marbella, which was nice to see. Everyone was watching and cheering for them.”
Dubai 2
The unique nature of the mid-season World Cup afforded Liverpool the chance to take part in a warm-weather training camp in Dubai in December last year.
The Reds played two friendlies - against AC Milan and Lyon - at the Al Maktoum Stadium, winning 4-1 against the Italians after losing to the Ligue 1 outfit a few days earlier. The trip was aimed at ironing out tactical issues that had blighted the opening months of the campaign more than building up base levels of fitness that had already been established during the summer.
"It's obviously been different weather to what we're used to at this time of the year and all our families back home are wrapping up with the snow and things like that," Andy Robertson told the ECHO at the time. "But this has been important for us, training in this heat, you get out of breath that wee bit quicker and it's been important for us. It's an important week or so and coming towards the end of it now it'll be 12 days, so it's been good. Training in the heat, this environment, the pitches, the facilities are great and just being together has been nice.
"After three weeks off it's just been about fine tuning things and being ready for the start of the Premier League. We've settled into the one hotel and the one training ground and there's been no moving about or anything like that. Some of the trips we go on are a wee bit more hectic and commercially-driven where you're jumping about to different cities and things like that but this is purely football and team bonding as well.
"We've had a couple of dinners out together and had a few things with staff here, so it's been good. Team bonding is important and then being on the pitch, the work we've done on the pitch has been good. The dinners we've had, the meetings and things like that have all been important for setting us up for the rest of the season because usually when we get a break like this, it's in February time maybe and you're going into a sprint finish when you come back, but this time around we've got more games than usual."
Liverpool returned to England and were quickly knocked out of the Carabao Cup at Manchester City before 2022 was seen off with back-to-back wins at Aston Villa on Boxing Day and at home to Leicester City before New Year's Eve. A terrible start to 2023, however, saw the Reds beaten by Brentford, Brighton and Wolves all before the week of February was out.
Barcelona
A three-day break in Barcelona was very much aimed at resting and recuperating as opposed to any detailed tactical or physical work.
Klopp explained the importance of the nine-day gap between Saturday's win over Brentford and the trip to Leicester on Monday night in his post-match press conference at weekend, saying:
"[The break is] good news, it's great news," Klopp said. "Absolutely. Imagine we would have now played Tuesday again. We would have been completely knackered. It’s really time [for a rest].
"You could see today that one team had the full week and the other team played only three days ago, a super intense game as well. And before that, three days ago, a super intense game as well!
"Winning three in a row at home is absolutely special. I really think the people who saw the game today in the stadium, it will not be a game they will tell their grandchildren about but it’s a game where there is a lot to enjoy because of the fight we put in was exceptional.
"The focus level the boys showed was exceptional. Concentration, top. And again, a lot of good signs for us for how we can look for the future. We have to do it more consistently, we have to learn, we have to adapt but there are a lot of good signs and I’m really pleased with that."
The plan is a clear one for Liverpool: Ensure they get sufficient rest to help them continue their end-of-season push for a place in next season's Champions League. It could prove to be an inspired move.
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