Jurgen Klopp sends warning to Liverpool's top-four rivals

Jurgen Klopp has sent a fresh warning to Liverpool’s domestic rivals that ‘there is a lot to come’ from his side this season, while he stressed that the timing of the World Cup will harm plenty of club teams.

The Reds went into the World Cup break sixth in the Premier League table and seven points adrift of the top four following a disappointing beginning to the campaign.

Liverpool returned to action with a 3-2 defeat to Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on Thursday, and reflecting on this and other performances this season, Klopp insisted there’s plenty of room for improvement.

“We have left a gap between us and much more exciting positions in the table. We have to chase. I saw good signs last night, I wasn’t happy with everything, our counter-press was pretty much non-existent, which I don’t like,” he said.

“There is a lot to come, we don’t think about the break anymore. It’s a start for something new and building on the things we’ve done so far and knowing and expecting that we can do better – starting on Boxing Day.”

Discussing how the World Cup will impact the rest of the season, Klopp added: “For the players who played in the World Cup, the whole year will be incredibly intense. That’s really, really, really tough. We will have to see how we deal with that, and we will be really careful with the information we get.

“That makes planning really difficult for the next game because we were 100% clear what we want to do against City and then you have to change in the last second pretty much, that’s not cool but it’s the situation and that might happen against Villa as well so we need to be flexible.”