Jurgen Klopp admits the current lack of a holding midfielder in the Liverpool squad would see the Reds adopt a temporary formation for their Premier League opener.
The Reds will travel to Stamford Bridge to take on Chelsea in their opening game of the 2023/24 season which kicks off this weekend.
Liverpool rounded off their pre-season preparations with a convincing 3-1 win over Bundesliga side Darmstadt at Preston North End’s Deepdale stadium on Monday evening.
The game saw Klopp deploy Alexis Mac Allister as a no.6 due to Curtis Jones picking up a slight knock ahead of the friendly.
Mac Allister impressed as a deep-lying midfielder and looks favourite to start again in that role against the Blues on Sunday.
“It’s clear, we looked fresh and really good, in the next six days we have to find a formation for Chelsea and not for the whole season,” said the Reds boss. “Nobody got injured, everyone got through okay.
“There is some football stuff we have to do and sort, but that’s normal. Pre-season always goes until the first international break, we have to use these weeks without international football.
“In Germany, we could train a lot on physical and tactical stuff, we came out of the tour without big problems. It’s not done and dusted, we have four or five sessions then we have to put in a proper fight. Let’s go.”
On the Darmstadt game, he added: “[We] conceded again one that we should not concede, it’s an obvious mistake which we spoke already about.
“But that’s how it is with mistakes; you do it once, you talk about it, that doesn’t mean you sort it immediately but the situation is clear that the diagonal protection is not there.
“We cannot avoid each pass in behind our [defensive] line, we just have to then make sure we are in better positions.”
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