Kevin Grosskreutz warns Liverpool of Jurgen Klopp's heavy-handed slaps

With nary more than a match and a day of training to acclimate themselves to new manager Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool players will appreciate any advice on their new gaffer, even some foreboding words from Borussia Dortmund midfielder Kevin Grosskreutz.

A member of Klopp's back-to-back Bundesliga winners at Dortmund, Grosskruetz was privy to the manager's appreciative reactions, namely the now-infamous "Klopp-slap."

"Jurgen Klopp may bump heads with his players on Saturday, he may even slap them, but one message will be clear: it is not about you, it is about the team," Grosskreutz said in an open letter to Liverpool players and supporters.

Klopp is an emotional guy. You have seen on television how he is on the touchline living every kick? Let me tell you he is equally animated in the dressing room. He is colourful, angry, emotional but he definitely has a plan. He has a clear strategy, he combines brains and guts.

Before every game, he made sure the atmosphere inside the dressing room was always highly charged. He would speak to each player individually, pumping them up, telling them what he wanted and then he would address us all as a group.

Lots of things went on with varying degrees of roughness; you could compare it maybe to what you see in American football or the rugby world cup, he’d bang heads with players, slap them. It was not in an overly aggressive way but in a way buddies would motivate each other.

He wanted to get inside our heads so that he knew we were going out to win. He wants everyone to put their body on the line and that will be his mantra: One for all and all for one.

Any Liverpool individual who doesn’t buy into that will soon find himself out of the group.

Kind words from a man who clearly enjoyed playing under the 48-year-old Stuttgart-born gaffer at the Westfalenstadion, though as fair warning to Liverpool's squad, Klopp may take some time to warm to the mercurial performances of the Merseyside outfit.