Jurgen Klopp hailed the ‘fantastic reception’ he and his Liverpool squad received at Chester for their opening pre-season friendly.

The Reds boss was true to his word that he would field a strong side at the Swansway Chester Stadium as the likes of Fabinho, Naby Keita, James Milner, Daniel Sturridge and Loris Karius all played their part in a convincing 7-0 victory over the Blues of National League North.

Just under 4,400 came out to support the fixture and Klopp admitted he was surprised at the near-capacity crowd given it clashed directly with England’s World Cup quarter-final victory over Sweden.

“It was honestly really nice,” the German said. “If I am honest, if I was the supporters I would have watched the England game.

“I didn’t know if Liverpool fans would be here, but people said they would and yes, we get here and there are Liverpool fans here.

“It’s great that we are very important to the people and the last time we were here was 2002.

“It’s been fantastic, the reception we played in was great and people have been really nice. I tried to sign as many shirts and programmes as possible.

“These are neighbours for us and we showed up, and that’s what we will do on Tuesday (Tranmere, away) and I like to go round the corner to play football games because it helps all of us and makes sense.”