Press conferenceThe boss on transfer strategy and Mane vs Salah at AFCON

The boss spoke to the media at a press conference ahead of Sunday’s Emirates FA Cup fourth-round tie with Cardiff City at Anfield.

In addition to providing a squad fitness update and discussing the Reds’ swoop for Colombia international Luis Diaz, he gave the following answers to reporters…

On Mane and Salah reaching the AFCON final and whether the squad will watch the game together…

With the team? Nothing planned yet, didn’t think about it. But we followed it pretty closely. Great achievement obviously for both, getting through to the final. It’s great. Naby played an exceptional tournament as well; unfortunately was suspended for yellow cards in a decisive game for them, I think otherwise Guinea would have had a good chance to go a bit further as well. So, so far a really successful tournament for our boys. It will be exciting. Now it’s obviously not so easy because we have to watch the game and one will be definitely really happy after it, and the other one much less so. But both have a good chance to achieve something really big.

On the loan moves for Nathaniel Phillips and Neco Williams earlier this week…

So, first and foremost really good for Neco and Nat especially. Nat deserved it so much. We would love to keep him here, to be honest, with all the things that happened in the last few years on the centre-half position. Nat was incredibly reliable and a great figure here at the training ground. But it’s really well deserved and I’m really happy for both of them.

On ‘expectation Liverpool will eventually sign Fabio Carvalho’…

I don’t know, we will see that. We are obviously still interested, it would be crazy if not. It’s just in the moment obviously not in our hands. I think Marco [Silva] said it all yesterday in his press conference. These kind of deals, it was pretty late before the transfer window closed again and so in the end it didn’t work out. But we will see what happens.

On the desire to reach a second domestic cup final this season…

Massive. I cannot say more. We are not the most successful FA Cup team at least as long as I’m here. Yeah, we are quite ambitious.

On the possibility of Mane and Salah being available to face Leicester next Thursday…

I think they will be available. We will see. The one who wins will probably fly back to their home country, celebration, that’s how it is. I think Tuesday or Wednesday latest, the winner will be back. The other one probably slightly earlier. We will see. And then I have to talk to them. One thing, they have rhythm, they played obviously quite a few games. We will see, I have to speak to them then.

On Liverpool’s transfer strategy…

Our strategy is to sign the right players in the right moment. Was there ever a team who spent £200m in one transfer window? It’s all about that. We recognise issues; we recognise issues like on positions or with contracts or these kind of things. We are long together with this team, it’s great; fantastic team, one of the most successful in the history of this club. But we will never miss having a look ahead as well. That’s exactly what we are doing. But we are Liverpool so we cannot only work with talents and let’s have a look in two or three years that they will be ready. This must be always a mix-up of everything. We have a lot of talents, we have really great players in the moment here; in the first-team squad and around the first-team squad, a few of them I’m 100 per cent sure they will definitely be Liverpool players, but not now. And that’s what we do, building a team for now and for tomorrow. With the things we do, we are happy. If other people are not happy with this, I cannot change that. This is the way the club is doing it, I think pretty much already before I arrived. And since I’m here I’m absolutely used to it and that’s the way it is.

On what the club can benefit from Mane and Salah’s progress at AFCON…

How much we benefit off that, I don’t know. But it was obvious – I watched a lot of games – and it was really obvious Naby was the absolute leader in the Guinea team, the same for Sadio in the Senegal team and of course Mo with Egypt. Yesterday when the coach was not there anymore because he got a red card, before the penalty shootout you saw Mo talking, speaking and all these kind of things with the whole group. All the things, all the experience these boys get in these situations help us, of course. Short term, I’m not sure; long term, definitely helped them as well. It’s really very impressive to see. It’s very important that you get through these kind of things. It’s difficult obviously to get that far in a tournament, the pressure – they are the superstars so the pressure they had on their shoulders was massive. And how they dealt with it, I’m really proud of them, to be honest, and now two of them are in the final and yeah, we will watch it definitely.