Liverpool defender Ragnar Klavan has confessed that he has found life tough in his debut campaign in the Premier League due to the unpredictable nature of the division.
The Estonia international has started 12 games in the English top flight for the Reds since joining from Augsburg last summer in a deal worth just over the £4m mark.
Klavan has played a full part in Liverpool's last two matches - back-to-back wins over Arsenal and Burnley at Anfield - but the 31-year-old admits that he is still learning about the league and coming to terms with the strength of sides near the bottom end of the table.
"It was a reality check for me," he is quoted as saying by The Mirror. "I realised then how intense the Premier League is. The Bundesliga is also intense and players have high fitness levels. But where as there you can anticipate tactics and how things might go, when a game gets going here it's forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards, and anything can happen.
"It takes some time to get used to it but we also train in this way. Our training style is high in intensity and that has really helped. This is one of the things that makes the Premier League so special and the most watched league in the world. If we play against lower teams that are not doing so well this season we are expected to win, but these teams still have really good quality.
"If you look at the championship race in Germany then 90% of people would put their bets on Bayern Munich every year. In Spain you would put your money on Real Madrid or Barcelona but here the race is more open. There are five or six teams you could put your bets on in August and not know which one will win.
"That makes English football so attractive to watch and it also makes it difficult to be consistent in the Premier League. Chelsea have been clinical, consistent and won games, but nobody else has done that and it shows that in this league you have to be at your best every time to beat even the lower teams."
Klavan has also featured five times for Liverpool in domestic cup competitions, scoring his only goal in the 3-0 EFL Cup win over Derby County.
Daniel Lewis
