Jürgen Klopp has described Brighton as the best-coached team in the Premier League and warned Liverpool cannot “look silly” at the Amex Stadium for a second season in a row.
The Liverpool manager admits his side must atone on Sunday for a 3-0 defeat at Brighton in January and a performance he described at the time as the worst he could remember. Liverpool exited the FA Cup at the Amex a fortnight later and have yet to record a win against the Seagulls since Roberto De Zerbi took charge.
Klopp’s high praise for Brighton is based on how far they have progressed on modest resources compared with their Premier League rivals. De Zerbi’s team have been inconsistent as they adapt to a first campaign with European football, and were routed 6-1 at Aston Villa last week, but Klopp admits Liverpool require a vast improvement on last season’s display to capitalise.
“If we play like we played last year we will get a massive knock again,” said Klopp, who will be without the suspended Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota and the injured Cody Gakpo. “Brighton had a few results which did not go exactly their way but that is a completely normal situation in their development. They made a lot of changes, lost top players – one of them we got [Alexis Mac Allister] – and still played incredible football.
“We expect a really tough game against the best-coached team in the league, I would say, because of where they are coming from. Graham [Potter] did a lot of good stuff and that is a really smart move from Potter to De Zerbi and they made really big steps: super consistent, different formations, different players, lineups and you always see Brighton football and I couldn’t respect that more. We have to put a few things right because you can look silly once but you should not look silly a second time.”
Mac Allister will face his former club for the first time since a £35m summer move. The Argentina World Cup winner has been deployed in a defensive midfield role by Klopp, mainly out of necessity, but could be shifted forward in the absence of Jones.
“We didn’t even look for his best position yet – we just use him,” Klopp said. “He is a fantastic player, I love everything about him. Super-smart tactically and off the pitch as well, so that is really nice to work with. If we as a team defend well he can definitely play the 6. Did I know that before? I had a guess but I was not sure because I did not know exactly how all the other boys would do because we defend more compact and better than in our bad phases last year. We have small spaces and then it is really good because he sees the situations really well.”
