Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has urged his players to wear masks and gloves in public to minimise the risk of contracting coronavirus.
The Premier League will restart on June 17 after a three-month suspension caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Reds’ first game back will be away to city rivals Everton on June 20 as Klopp’s team edge towards a first Premier League title in 30 years.
However the German manager has made the safety of the Liverpool players his main focus and he is confident the club will be able to make Anfield safe for all involved.
Nevertheless, he feels players must take extra precautions in everyday life and, pointing to Germany as an example to follow, believes the rest of the population should be more careful, too.
“Yes it feels 100 percent a secure environment, but we can never be sure that it will be and that there will be no infections,” Klopp told BBC 5 Live. “We still have a normal life, the boys are massively disciplined. [It has been] 11 weeks already, which for people in this age is a challenge.
“For all of us it’s a challenge, but for [the players] especially. We go to petrol stations, we need fuel, we need food, stuff like this.
“We wear face masks, which I don’t understand why not everyone in England, especially in close areas, wear face masks and gloves. I don’t understand that, it helped in Germany a lot. I’m not an expert but it helped there a lot.
“We’ve told the boys, if you go wherever I want them to wear a face mask and gloves, so from their point of view nothing can really happen.
“Humans are the most risk to humans, we are our own biggest enemy sometimes, so we have to stay disciplined, and we will.”
He added: “Hopefully for all the other clubs as well it can stay like this, but the environment itself; the training ground, around the matches, that will be 100% safe.
“Everybody is doing everything you can imagine that nothing happens there. The boys are, physically, in an incredible shape, I am not worried about them. If I would be, we wouldn’t be here.”