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Klopp: 'I was never worried about Salah'

Cape Town - Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp says he never had any doubt that Mohamed Salah would be able to follow up his hugely successful first season at Anfield.

The Egyptian maestro scored 41 goals in his debut season with the Reds, helping them to fourth place in the Premier League and a place in the Champions League final.

And while Salah had a much slower start to his second season at Liverpool, he now has 56 goals in 74 appearances after his hat-trick against Bournemouth on Saturday, and Klopp insists he was never worried about his form.

"I was not one second worried," said the German. "I don't know exactly what people wrote, I have no clue about that.

"But we have to develop always, and to confirm and to improve again on a 41-goal season. Everybody would struggle a little, because how can you improve on that?

"If you score in the first five games 10 goals everyone will say 'yeah, it's going to happen again', and then if you ended up with 39 people would say 'yeah but it's not 41'.

"And we all have to learn to deal with it, and him of course as well. That's how it is.

"He's never had a season like that before, and he wants to have the season again. But you have to make it step by step, so that's what we do."

Klopp's side now face a huge task against Napoli on Tuesday, needing to win either 1-0 or by two clear goals in order to advance to the last 16 of the competition, and the manager is hoping that Anfield turns out in full force.

"We were not good at Napoli so first of all we would like to show we are better than that," said Klopp.

"So, we also have to call again on Anfield, and they should help us because that's a massive game, a really massive game.

"Last year we did nearly everything to get qualified for that tournament again, because we had the final in the background, but we also knew we had to do the job in the league.

"So now we have the chance with a specific result still to go through when this Champions League campaign so far was not really ours.

"In the home games so far, we weren't quite so impressive. They know as well it will be tough, but they are strong and we need to be very strong.

"We have to be on our toes on Tuesday night. It's a big one, our people know that, and I know they are already warming up.

"I believe people get what they deserve. So, if we are good enough we will get the result we need and go through. And if not, we'll congratulate Napoli and Paris, that's how it is."

Liverpool are back in action on Tuesday evening in a must-win Champions League Group C clash against Napoli at Anfield.

The Reds will have to beat the Italian giants by a two-goal deficit in order to qualify for the round of 16. 

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