Liverpool defender Kostas Tsimikas has confessed Jurgen Klopp has been putting the players through a tough pre-season as they seek to respond to a disappointing Premier League campaign last year.

The Reds had a largely disastrous season before a late up-turn in form saw them sneak their way up to fifth in the Premier League table - a result which, while disappointing, looked destined to be a whole lot worse for the vast majority of the campaign.

Klopp took his side to Germany for the first few weeks of pre-season, where they beat Karlsruher 4-2 and played out a hectic 4-4 draw with Greuther Furth, and the Reds are now in Singapore to continue their preparations.

Leicester City are first up on the agenda on Sunday and Tsimikas is confident Liverpool are moving in the right direction.

"The first part of pre-season was very, very tough for all the boys, some days we had three sessions," he told club media. "So it has been very tough for us.

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"We have two [more] weeks to prepare ourselves, we have three pre-season games [left]. So I think everybody will be ready for the first game of the season."

Tsimikas also took the opportunity to voice his excitement towards working with new signings Alexis Mac Allister and Dominik Szoboszlai, both of whom have been in action already this summer.

"They are very good players, they showed it in their teams,” the left-back continued. "We played a lot of times against Alexis. They are very technical players, very good guys first of all. I think they will help us a lot.

"When you play against [Alexis] he is a very, very tough opponent. I’m very happy we have him here as a teammate and together hopefully we can win many trophies.

"[Dominik] is a very talented player, a very good player. He showed he was at his previous team; he can score, he can run, he can play very smart passes. And I think he will help us a lot."

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This article was originally published on 90min as Kostas Tsimikas admits Liverpool pre-season has been 'very tough'.