Wijnaldum: Everyone wants to stop us at the moment
Georginio Wijnaldum believes Liverpool's form at the start of the season will make teams even more determined to bring their impressive run to an end.
The Reds have lost just once in 12 matches so far this term, establishing themselves among the Premier League’s early pace-setters and booking a spot in the EFL Cup quarter-finals.
They have done so with plenty of attacking verve too, putting four past Arsenal and Leicester City and notching five in the home clash with Hull City.
Tonight they take on Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, and Wijnaldum expects the Eagles to have extra motivation for taking down one of the league’s form sides.
“It’s going to be hard,” the No.5 told Liverpoolfc.com.
“We’re a team in a good situation, we have played good games and won games, so everyone wants to stop that and wants to stop us playing football and counter-pressing and all the stuff we’re good at. So it’s going to be difficult. We’ll see how it’s going to go.”
Crucial to Liverpool’s ambitions of securing a seventh win in 10 Premier League matches will be the task of stopping former Reds forward Christian Benteke.
The Belgian, who moved to Palace in the summer, has enjoyed a promising start to the campaign, scoring three goals in seven league appearances.
Wijnaldum hopes the knowledge of Benteke’s threat can be an advantage.
He said: “It’s not that easy to stop Christian because he’s a good player, he’s strong and he can score goals.
“So it’s not easy to stop him. But we’re lucky that we know what kind of player he is. We must do everything to stop him making goals and we must do it together, because it’s really difficult to stop Christian.
“He will be 200 per cent motivated to score against his old team, so that makes it even harder to stop him. But if we do it as a team, it will be harder for him to score goals.”
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Despite Liverpool’s strong start to the season, Jürgen Klopp has made a habit of insisting that his team can improve on their level of performance so far.
The manager is simply not willing to settle on the standards set – a mentality that is music to Wijnaldum’s ears.
“I like it,” said the Netherlands international. “He knows we can do better and wills us to do better.
“It’s always good. If you’re happy with what we have right now, it will not make you better. He’s always like that.
“If we play a good game, he says ‘We played well but this and this can be better’ to make us a better team and better players. I’m happy with it, because it will make you a better team and a better player.”
The midfielder admits to allowing himself a weekly glance at the standings, though.
“I look at the league table after every game, because I always want to see the scores of the other games,” he added.
“But it’s not that important.
“It’s important at the end of the season where you stand. It is true what the manager says – we must make sure that at the end of the season we stand as high as possible. That’s the most important thing.”