Jurgen Klopp has revealed his delight at seeing Liverpool’s players thrive on international duty following fine performances from Diogo Jota and Xherdan Shaqiri during the break.

Jota has enjoyed a fine debut season on Merseyside since signing from Wolves and has recently returned from injury following a lengthy lay-off, impressing for Portugal during the recent internationals with two goals in a World Cup qualifying draw with Serbia.

Xherdan Shaqiri also starred as Switzerland made a positive start to the qualification campaign, whilst Thiago also gained some valuable minutes with the Spanish national side during the break.

Klopp admits he was delighted to see his players reap the rewards of a pause to the Premier League campaign and is hopeful the Reds can benefit ahead of their trip to face Arsenal at the Emirates this weekend.

“Diogo is obviously in a good moment. He was before he left and showed that again in the international break,” Klopp told his pre-match press conference.

“Yes, these are the rare benefits of an international break from a club point of view! But it is good. Shaq played really well for Switzerland, scored there as well and had some success. Thiago played a good role in the Spanish games, not in the last one but in the one before when he came on.

“So yes, there are benefits of it but they are not a lot. But now they are back and they are all healthy [and] some of them had real success.

“Scotland obviously played pretty well, Wales had a surprise, maybe a surprise, [getting] three points against Czech Republic. So a lot of things were going on and we were here, waiting and training. Now they are back, now we train again and go again.”

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