With a hectic run of games finally over – at least until New Year’s Day – Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that Liverpool will now finally enjoy a Christmas break.
Liverpool played their final game of 2023 and emerged with a valuable win, with Darwin Nunez and Diogo Jota scoring in a 2-0 victory over Burnley.
It marked the end of a stretch of four games in 10 days and, more broadly, eight in 24 days over the month of December, with the Reds winning five, drawing two and losing one.
Given they hosted Arsenal on December 23 and visited Burnley on Boxing Day, there was little time for Klopp and his players to enjoy the festivities.
But speaking to Amazon Prime after the game at Turf Moor, the manager revealed that Liverpool would now take a two-day break for a delayed Christmas.
“It’s the fourth game in 10 days,” he reflected.
“Whatever the body is doing then and how you lose focus and how you are not as precise anymore in the decisive moments, you never know and you just have to get through it.
“That’s what we said before that phase, now we got through it.
“Now we have five days, I think, between now and the next game, which feels like we should go on holiday really! Really mad.
“The boys now have two days off. I told them already before the game: if we win, we have two days off.”
With Jota not sealing the result until late on, Klopp joked: “I saw my two days off already slipping through my fingers!”
“You see five of them running when Jota gets the second, they knew, two days off with their families!” replied Steve McManaman.
It may not be the case for all of his players, with Klopp already explaining in his post-match press conference that Jota would train on Wednesday as he continues his recovery.
But the manager is clearly keen for the squad to take in some much-needed rest before the arrival of Newcastle to Anfield on New Year’s Day.
The hope is that Liverpool will still be top of the Premier League by then, with Arsenal able to overtake if they beat West Ham on Thursday, but Virgil van Dijk is not looking too intently at the table just yet.
“It’s December, so we won’t look too far ahead,” the captain told Amazon Prime.
“I’m very pleased, because it’s the last game of the year for us.
“Now it’s time to have a little bit of time together with our families and then we focus on Newcastle.
“We will see, we will focus on ourselves and we’ll see in February, March, how the table looks.
“But we are definitely hoping to be up there and competing with the others, let’s see where we could be.”
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo, Van Dijk added: “I probably won’t even watch football in the next couple of days.
“I’ll be spending time with my family. We’ve been away so much recently.”
