Adam Lallana has labelled Liverpool’s 4-0 International Champions Cup victory over Barcelona as an important reward for all the energy the club have poured into pre-season.
Jurgen Klopp’s side were irresistible as they blitzed the Spanish giants at Wembley on Saturday, in an encounter which drew the second biggest crowd in the venue’s history.
A live audience of 89,845 were treated to a counter-attacking masterclass from the Reds, who netted all their goals after turning over possession. It was Lallana who sparked Sadio Mane’s opener after stealing Arda Turan’s short pass. Javier Mascherano’s own goal, a composed finish from Divock Origi and a stunning Marko Grujic header were also created by Liverpool suffocating Luis Enrique’s men.
“The manager has made it very clear that he doesn’t want us to be passive,” Lallana explained to Goal in the aftermath of the win.
“He wants us to be direct and go and win the ball back. Sometimes it can be a bit difficult against Barcelona because you can show them too much respect, but the manager was clear about us getting the balance right. I think we did that well, which is why we got the goals.
“It was rewarding for everything we’ve worked on, but he’s still pointed out things we can do better and I’m just going off what he says.
“We’ve now got a week to work on that on the training pitch.”
Lallana revealed Liverpool’s double sessions in the build-up to the game against the Liga champions ensured they were poised to cause Barcelona problems from the first whistle.
The 28-year-old was also encouraged by club converting their opportunities, which has not happened often enough during their preparations for 2016-17.
“It was nice that we took our chances today because there’s been games in pre-season where we haven’t scored as much as we should have,” he said.
“We weren’t really worried about that, we knew the goals would come.
“We had a couple of double sessions before this as well, where we worked a lot on tactics and shape and it’s important that we do see the reward from all these hours we’ve been putting in on what the manager wants us to do.”
Lallana was typically self-critical of the performance, despite Liverpool’s dominance over such formidable opponents.
“There’s still definitely things to improve on. They were elements in the first half where just personally I was out of position and could have made better decisions,” he explained.
“We could have possibly kept the ball a little better when we were under pressure for periods, but there’s definitely more positives out of that performance.
“The result was good, maybe we were a little flattered because Simon [Mignolet] made a couple of saves and they hit the woodwork, but we were playing against Barcelona at the end of the day!”
The attacker feels the Reds will be in good shape to start the season, even though there’s different levels of fitness within the squad.
“We’re not too far away from being ready,” Lallana said. “Obviously players are at different levels; myself and the England lads came back a little later, Emre Can’s only been back 10 days or so and it will probably be a little while before everyone is at the exact same fitness level. But that doesn’t matter too much, as there’s still time to build fitness during the season.
“It’s important not to peak too early."
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