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Liverpool humbled by Mainz on Klopp’s return

Liverpool were doing the right things against a sub par Barcelona, emerging deserved winners at Wembley.

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Jurgen Klopp says that Liverpool are prepared to react in the transfer market after James Milner suffered an injury in pre-season.

With a late Danny Ings consolation disallowed, Klopp’s men must now look ahead to their Premier League opener at Arsenal next weekend.

The Reds produced a display of counter-attacking excellence to rout the Spanish champions in London, scoring three times inside 50 minutes to stun the Catalans.

Divock Origi added a third seconds later and substitute Marko Grujic chipped in with a stoppage-time header as Jurgen Klopp’s side registered their sixth win in eight pre-season games.

“I don’t want to over-estimate this game, but it’s still good for us”. Na Lallana first help Sadio Mane score the first goal when he stop Arda Turan short pass before Mascherano kon do own goal.

It was a heavily changed side from that which beat Barcelona – a total of 9 changes to the starting XI with Alex Manninger taking charge of goal.

A key component of Liverpool’s win was their high defensive line and intensity of closing Barca’s players down to limit their space to influence the game and Klopp feels there were several positive lessons for his players to learn from the result.

Daniel Brosinski’s penalty put Mainz in front and Jhon Cordoba, Yunus Malli and Japan striker Yoshinori Muto also netted. “And we have enough days for the players to get back to full form and fitness”.

And manager Klopp was dealt another blow when Milner, who was playing in Liverpool’s problem left-back position, limped off moments before half-time. Klopp said he would undergo a scan on Sunday.

They moved the ball so quickly in the opening stages of both halves that Barcelona were not in the game by the time they found themselves one goal behind. Kevin Stewart, having also been introduced at the break, robbed the ball from Busquets and set his teammates on their way.

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A fourth goal was headed in to complete a miserable afternoon for the reds.

Getty Images       Rakitic paying no attention to heavy Liverpool defeat