Bangkok, July 11 (IANS): Liverpool have included new signing Darwin Nunez in their 37-man squad ahead of Tuesday's pre-season friendly against Manchester United in Bangkok.
Just 24 hours after United arrived in Thailand on Saturday morning, Liverpool arrived in the country on Sunday, greeted to a similar reception to the one Erik ten Hag and his players received the day before. Hundreds of fans and photographers were eager to catch a glimpse of the squad and manager Jurgen Klopp.
After facing United in the match Bangkok Century Cup at the Rajamangala National Stadium, Liverpool will continue their tour by travelling to Singapore. United, meanwhile, will travel to Australia for matches against Melbourne Victory, Crystal Palace and Aston Villa.
On the reception the squad received on arrival in Bangkok, head coach Jurgen Klopp said, "Thank you very much for the really warm welcome we received already here, in the hour we are here now. It was really nice. This is actually only my second time in Thailand; the first time was a flight to Sydney and an hour in Phuket in the airport. So, my first proper time in Thailand. I heard so many good things about it and I can't wait to experience it a little bit. We are looking forward to the game obviously, looking forward to having some time to spend in the city of Bangkok if possible.
"We are here for you, for all of you and I hope we can have a good time together and tie the knot between us and our supporters here in Thailand a little bit more, it would be absolutely great. Thank you very much for the warm welcome."
On Tuesday's match against United, he said, "Usually football matches are the most important thing for us but in this specific case it is really more for the people. We brought here 37 players, so we have all generations here and we have to use all of them because the boys who were on international duty in the summer only arrived today pretty much and they cannot play too long, but we will try to give them a few minutes as well. So, it will be really exciting."
Manchester United, a new manager, trained a little bit longer than us so might be, I'm not sure, in a better situation in the moment. But we see it as an important test because it's against United and we don't play friendlies, obviously both teams don't play friendlies against each other, so we will see what we can do," he added.