Emre: We'll keep on running under Klopp
Emre Can was the target of many of Jürgen Klopp's animated gestures and noises on the touchline last weekend as the Liverpool midfielder ran and harried and pressed to the manager's delight.
Playing in a central three for the new boss’ first game in charge, the No.23 was constantly squeezing space during the goalless draw with Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane.
Can’s appetite for ensuring opponents had little or no time to pick a pass typified the style Klopp is eager to reproduce here following success with similar methods at Borussia Dortmund and Mainz.
The Germany international’s commitment to the task drew passionate praise from the manager, who spent much of the match at the edge of his technical area offering guidance.
“He’s completely different from other coaches,” Can told Liverpoolfc.com of his compatriot. “He is more emotional and he’ll put his arm round you.
“That’s the way he is and I don’t think anything will change regardless of whether he’s in Germany or here in England. I think all coaches have their own way of doing things.
“I definitely enjoy working with a coach like that. He likes to come onto the pitch in training and show you how you can do something better.
“He is always keen to help and I find that very positive. I like the way he works and it suits me down to the ground.”
While his Reds teammates knew plenty about Klopp having watched Dortmund rise to prominence across his seven-year tenure, Can had actually locked horns with the Black and Yellows.
The 21-year-old faced them three times in the Bundesliga with Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich before moving to Merseyside in 2014.
“His team was rated really highly and they still are,” Can continued.
“It wasn’t easy to play against Dortmund as they played a high pressing game and performed as a team. That made it tricky.
“I was happy such a great coach was coming here to Liverpool and that I had the chance to work with him. He showed what he could do at Dortmund and Mainz over a number of years.”
Replicating the achievements Klopp oversaw in particular at Dortmund is of course going to take time, as the manager himself has acknowledged.
But signs of the German’s influence were evident in a number of areas in the capital, especially the amount of ground the team covered against Spurs.
The challenge now, according to Can, is to fine-tune that pressing work so the Reds get the rewards for the energy they expend on the pitch.
He said: “When you play football, you have to do a lot of running. You have to put in more sprints and the stats show we ran further and did more sprints.
“We have to learn how to deal with that and divide it up during games. We’ll do that from now on and we haven’t got a problem with that because all the players have the necessary fitness levels.
“I think we’ll want to keep playing football this way. We want to be able to press in every game and not just in one match because there’s a new coach.
“Of course, everybody might have put in a bit more because there was a new coach and you want to show what you can do.
“But the aim for the team must be to give 100 per cent every game and do what the coach asks of us. We know we’ve got more quality and it’s up to us to create more chances to put us in a position to score more goals.”