Alisson, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Naby Keita and Xherdan Shaqiri all return to Liverpool training this week; Sadio Mane to follow a week later
Tuesday 30 July 2019 11:12, UK
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has described the club's training camp in Evian as the "most important week of the season".
Liverpool were beaten 3-0 by Napoli in a pre-season friendly at Murrayfield on Sunday, but Klopp insisted after the game that his side would be a "different animal" once competitive fixtures come around.
Speaking ahead of Sunday's Community Shield clash against Manchester City at Wembley, the German stressed the importance of the club's trip to France this week for their final fitness preparation ahead of the new season.
"It's massively important and we are looking forward to it," he said.
"Good results in the pre-season help to build confidence but that's not the most important thing.
"The most important thing is that you build the physical skills for a long, long season because we have to, pretty much, prepare only for the games. There's not a lot of time to train.
"We had to do intense sessions in the first three weeks. We played the games in different circumstances.
"It's always been clear Evian would be the most important week of the season, and we have five days after City before Norwich."
Klopp confirmed Alisson, Mohamed Salah, Roberto Firmino, Xherdan Shaqiri and Naby Keita are all fit and en route to Evian for the camp, while Sadio Mane will join up with the squad a week later following his involvement in the AFCON final.
"Everybody is coming on time on their flights," he added.
"From this afternoon, (Xherdan) Shaqiri, Naby (Keita), Roberto (Firmino), Mohamed (Salah) and Alisson will be in training.
"Sadio (Mane) comes in next week. We can talk an hour about [international scheduling] but it changes nothing so it's a waste of time."
Reflecting on the heavy defeat to Napoli, Klopp warned his players that they will not stand a chance against Manchester City on Sunday if they do not improve their defending of counter-attacks.
"We didn't defend counter-attacks well yesterday, we lost the ball in the wrong moments, and if that happens against Manchester City then you don't have a chance," he continued.
"What I've seen so far, City look good. Apart from Sergio Aguero, I think all the players have been in.
"It's the same as last season, Manchester City is the most difficult game to play during a season.
"I don't want to find excuses before we play them but we had a completely different pre-season, we played it without six players.
"Have we had the best pre-season of our lives? I cannot say that with the results, but the sessions were really good. From a freshness point of view, the games came at the wrong moment.
"The problem is all the games are in public so everybody sees what we're doing. Some people get concerned, some people don't. But we have to prove ourselves during the season, not in one game."
