Liverpool’s Gini Wijnaldum sees similarities between The Reds’ tough start to the 2020/21 Premier League season and the beginning of the 2016/17 campaign.
Wijnaldum just arrived at Liverpool in the summer of 2016 as one of Jürgen Klopp’s first signings for the club. Liverpool were still completing the work on the new Main Stand at Anfield so had asked for permission to begin the season with three consecutive away fixtures.
Those games were at Arsenal, Burnley and Spurs with Liverpool taking just four points from the 9 available. In September, they welcomed then-Premier League champions Leicester City to Merseyside as Anfield was opened for the first time that season. Liverpool beat Leicester 4-1 on the day.
The new 2020/21 season starts on the weekend of September 12th with Liverpool at home to newly-promoted Leeds United. However, Klopp’s men then face two very tough games in a row, at Chelsea and home to Arsenal. Liverpool also must travel to play Everton in the Merseyside derby in just their fifth league game.
Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com from the team’s Austrian training camp, Wijnaldum compared the tough start to when he first arrived at the club in 2016.
“Tough fixtures but we just have to get good results.
“My first season when I came here it was also a tough start with three away games because the stadium was not ready – this is quite similar. We just have to see how it’s going to look with supporters and all that.
“But in the Premier League, all games are difficult, especially in the beginning because everyone is fresh. We just have to train good, trying to play the games as good as possible and prepare ourselves for the season.
“We don’t know what we can expect. We know the fixtures and everything is tight and that you’re going to play a lot of games. But I think we will see how tough it is when we are in the situation when you play game after game. Then we’re going to see how tough it is.
“But we dealt with that situation before in some periods in the season. We know how to deal with it but it’s going to be difficult. Most periods of the season we’re going to play a lot of games. We just have to deal with the situation.
“You just want to do as good as possible and I already said it in my previous interviews that you never know what you deal with during the season. I just hope we can deal with every situation we will get in and make it as good as last season.”
Liverpool play VfB Stuttgart and RB Leipzig in two friendlies over the next four days before meeting Arsenal at Wembley Stadium in the Community Shield on Saturday week, August 29th.
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