News

Potter: Let's see how far we've come

Klopp’s men have been amazing, says head coach ahead of tomorrow night at the Amex.

By Charlie Hanson • 07 July 2020

By Paul Hazlewood
Graham Potter watching training ahead of Liverpool fixture.

Graham Potter is looking forward the test that Liverpool will present the Seagulls on Wednesday as it will give him the chance to see how they fair against the best team in the country.

Jurgen Klopp’s side head into Wednesday’s fixture with a staggering 23 point gap between themselves and second place Manchester City. 

Potter said, “It would be nice to get a result against them. Whenever you play the best it is an opportunity to test yourself and learn about yourselves.

“Liverpool have been amazing this season and are thoroughly deserved champions. It’s great for us to have that level of opposition.

"We have to make sure we retain Premier League status and keep fighting so that means trying to take points off every team between now and the end of the season.”

The victory over the Canaries was a massive step towards securing top-flight status, with the Albion now nine points clear of 18th placed Aston Villa with five to play.

The head coach praised the way his side responded to the pressure of last Saturday’s game, but insists that there is still plenty of work to do to make sure Albion retain Premier League status.

“We knew the importance of the win so there was a bit of pressure on us and that probably reflected in the performance [at Norwich],” he said.

“We were delighted with the three points, but we have still got a lot of work to do. We’ve got five games to go, we need to get as many points as we can and keep fighting.

“We’re playing against the champions on Wednesday night so it doesn’t come any more difficult than that. But that’s the Premier League - you have got to face it and we have to be ready.

“But we’ve picked up seven points from the first four games of the restart – it’s amazing what it does to lift morale.

"It’s slightly easier, but the guys have been really good throughout lockdown and during the return to training.

"There was a lot made of the fact we hadn’t won in 2020, but we’ve only had four defeats this year so we’ve been quite consistent in terms of what we have been doing.”

Despite the quick turnaround of games, Potter has near enough a full complement to pick from, but long-term absentee José Izquierdo won’t feature until next season whilst Steven Alzate is struggling for fitness.

“Izquierdo has been missing for some time now, but apart from him we’re fine,” added Potter.

“He is still some way away, he’s going to be next year. We are monitoring Steven [Alzate] daily and we’re probably going to have to take some decisions on him over the next couple of days. Even in training on Monday he looked like he was struggling a bit.”