Jurgen Klopp has revealed Gini Wijnaldum’s message before Liverpool’s win over Tottenham.
The Premier League champions edged out Wednesday’s encounter against Jose Mourinho’s side, which was settled by Roberto Firmino’s late header.
Prior to Spurs’ visit, the Reds had been guilty of making sluggish starts in recent outings iwth last weekend’s draw at Fulham a classic case in point.
But Klopp credits Wijnaldum’s pre-match rallying cry for his team’s flying start en route to reclaiming top spot from the Londoners in a hard-fought victory.
He said: “I think it was Gini in the dressing room before the Tottenham game [saying], ‘Don’t let us waste the first half again!’ he was shouting.
“We should have shouted that again before we came out of the dressing room at half-time because we wasted the 10-15 minutes then.
“Obviously it was a different game but it makes complete sense.
“But if you don’t have the perfect start, which is completely normal because it can happen, then you have to restart in the next minute, not after half-time.
“We have space for improvement, it’s incredible, but the boys played a pretty good game in the last game, it was a really difficult game.
“Now they feel good in this moment and we try to use that.”
The start of Liverpool’s title defence has been at odds with the emphatic form which saw them eventually end a long-awaited domestic drought last term.
From their opening 13 Premier League games, they have already dropped 11 points compared to just two at the same stage in the previous campaign.
However Klopp is unsure whether the more formidable challenges that his side now face is solely attributable to them being the reigning champions.
“It would probably be better to ask the other teams if they are more desperate now to beat us,” added the Liverpool manager.
“Since I am at Liverpool, my feeling is that, wherever we go, everyone wants to beat us. Not a lot of other teams ‘fancy’ the great history of this club.
“I said it once when we came to Newcastle in a situation where Newcastle was completely safe in the league and it was like a World Cup final!
“I was like, ‘Wow, what’s going on here?’ The reason must be in the past because we didn’t do anything wrong against Newcastle since I’m here I think.
“But we didn’t even come in a situation where we felt like the reigning champions, maybe the first or second match day.
“Since then we just try to sort our own problems to get through it somehow, so our smallest problem in the moment is that we won last year and everyone wants to beat us now.
“Everyone wants to beat us, that’s a problem, but is it because we won the league last year? No idea.”