Jurgen Klopp has warned Liverpool's fringe players that they must up their game this season if they are to gain any playing time due to the lack of European football.
The Reds do not have the option of heavily rotating their squad this term, having missed out on qualification for the Europa League.
Klopp instead intends to select the best players available to him on a game-by-game basis, with the additional days off between matches being used for rest and recovery.
"When we lost the Europa League final, there was absolutely nothing worthwhile about it, just a load of disappointment," he told the club's official website. "In the end the only positive thing about not playing European football this year is that we have more time to train and that is what we have to use, 100%.
"That's why we need to create a very strong team in the best understanding of the word 'team'. We need to have competition. We need a situation where the players push themselves and each one pushes the other for each position and wants to be in the team because you have time to recover.
"So it's not that you have to change the team a lot between two Saturday games or two Sunday games - it's nothing about rotation. It's about: 'OK, who is ready now? Who is ready to perform how we need in each specific game?'"
Liverpool begin their Premier League campaign with a trip to take on Arsenal this coming weekend, before facing Burnley at Turf Moor six days later.
Daniel Lewis
