Jürgen Klopp Thrilled to Work With 'Exceptional' Thiago Alcántara
By Tom Gott
Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp has described new signing Thiago Alcántara as the perfect addition to his squad for the new season.
After pursuing the Spaniard all summer, Liverpool finally managed to reach an agreement with Bayern Munich to sign Thiago for up to £25m, while the 29-year-old impressed on his debut as a half-time substitute against Chelsea.
75 - Half-time substitute Thiago completed more passes (75) than any Chelsea player managed in the entire match. Since full passing data is available for the Premier League (2003-04), his 75 successful passes are the most by a player who played a maximum of 45 minutes. Control. pic.twitter.com/UvHfrw1ggN
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 20, 2020
He managed more passes than anyone in Chelsea blue, despite only playing half the match, and Klopp told Sky Sports that his vision and creativity could help Liverpool reach another level.
"Thiago is obviously a very good football player," Klopp said. "You saw it [against Chelsea]. Some things are natural for him that are not natural for other players, but we won the league and we won the Champions League without Thiago. He won it with Bayern, so obviously it is a good fit I would say, but we now have to get used to each other.
"There are very special things [he has that separates him from others] in world football. His vision is exceptional, pair that with pretty good technical skills, and a nice passing ability and these kind of things, and you become a really interesting package. That's what Thiago is.
"On top of that as a guy, he couldn't be better. It's incredible, when you give him a ball, he is still a kid. And when you take the ball away he is a really mature and experienced football person, who is interested in a lot of things, tactics and all these kind of things. He wants to learn which is very important."
Despite not hiding his excitement, Klopp urged supporters to temper their expectations for Thiago and fellow new signings Diogo Jota and Kostas Tsimikas, insisting the trio are still getting to grips with life at Anfield.
“That is a challenge - but that is the situation," he said (via The Mirror). "You cannot train a lot of intense stuff in between the games, but you can work on tactics. That is possible.
“Work on positioning and things like this you do a lot in meetings and in talks and then on the pitch as well. I don’t know how often we can do it during a week, we will see. But it is a constant process.
“On the other side, our football because I am a pretty simple person our football is pretty simple. It is not rocket science and it is not that complicated what we do. It just needs a little time to get used to it in moments: counter press stuff like this. It will not take ages, it will take time. We will see how long.”