Ahead of this weekend’s hotly-anticipated tie, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has named Chelsea as ‘a top contender’, as well as praising their new arrival Christian Pulisic.
Chelsea have enjoyed a mixed start to the 2019/20 campaign where they currently sit sixth in the Premier League table, picking up eight points from their opening five games, but are yet to win at home.
They managed to put five past a normally resilient Wolves side last weekend, before losing their opening Champions League tie to Valencia in midweek, with Frank Lampard having to utilise a number of his younger players in the wake of the club’s two-window transfer ban.
However, speaking ahead of this weekend’s high profile fixture, Jurgen Klopp has said that Chelsea are one of the most well-equipped clubs to deal with such a ban due to their abundance of youth players, as well as revealing his ‘respect’ for the Blues.
“If there is one club in the world who a transfer ban didn’t hit that bad then I would say it was Chelsea because of their policy of the last few years,” Klopp said at his pre-match press conference.
“They had players on loan who have come back. Tammy Abraham knows how to score.
“They have all my respect. A top contender.”
One player who could feature is summer arrival Christian Pulisic, who was officially signed from Borussia Dortmund last January before completing the move to Stamford Bridge in July.
The USA international previously worked with Klopp as a youngster at the German outfit and had been linked with a reunion at Liverpool on a number of occasions, and the German boss lavished praise on the 21-year-old.
“He is a proper player, young, dynamic. Great with both feet. A really good signing for them,” Klopp said.
“He is unfortunately good and a super exciting player – a good signing.”
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