Liverpool coach reveals key to success as Reds wait for first Premier League title
Liverpool coach Pepijn Lijnders has underlined the importance of team spirit and togetherness to the club's recent successes.
The last two seasons have seen Jurgen Klopp's team finally begin to deliver on their promise, lifting the Champions League, UEFA Super Cup and Club World Cup, with a Premier League title also surely on the way.
Those triumphs owe much to an energetic and painstakingly choreographed style of play that would not be possible were there not a strong team spirit in the Anfield dressing room.
And Lijnders, who has become a key part of Klopp's backroom team since rejoining the Reds in 2018 following an ill-fated five-month foray into management, is thankful that this camaraderie exists.
"For each collective sport, togetherness is the first amendment to become successful," he told the club's official website.
"When real talent and creativity accepts it’s a team sport - when our front three accept they are responsible to defend five or even six players - you become a team for others to be worried about.
"Togetherness reflects our way of play; everyone is responsible for everything. I also feel that our off-the-pitch togetherness reflects our day-to-day routines at Melwood.
"The better you are organised, the better the players feel the attention to detail. They feel the effort of a whole building, it creates professionalism and, more importantly, responsibility.
"This in combination with a core group of players who set the standard and are a real example of an LFC player, that creates the base for success. It’s the cake - and the icing is the passion and ambition of the boys, their talent, their creativity."
In a press conference held earlier this season, Lijnders' succinctly summed up Liverpool's approach by declaring: "Our identity is intensity".
Those words are now plastered across one of the walls at Anfield and have even been seen on a fan banner, much to the 37-year-old's delight.
"I love it, what an honour!" he enthused. "We used it on the flipchart in one of our pre-season meetings. I still remember James [Milner] nodding when Jürgen showed and mentioned it.
"I believe in it: it’s our idea, a vision, a future, it’s our guide, it comes back in each exercise. Everyone thinks intensity is running harder and more, but for me it is the intensity of concentration.
"A high level of demand of pressing and counter-pressing, a team that is playing always with a maximum concentration. Always!"
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