Press conference'Everybody in the squad must be ready for this demanding period'

The Liverpool boss answered questions from reporters at the AXA Training Centre ahead of his side’s Premier League meeting with Newcastle United on Thursday evening.

Read on for a summary of Klopp’s pre-match comments from his media briefing…

On the new COVID-19 measures...

I support these new measures, absolutely. We get tested every day and before the games PCR tested – it's absolutely fine. So how it is in these times, I'm here earlier in the training ground than most of the players. It means we get tested before we arrive, go then back to the cars and when the lateral flow is negative, then we are allowed in the training ground. Yesterday we were all negative and we hope that's the case for today. That's it pretty much. We are, like the whole world, concerned about it, absolutely. But we do what we can and the vaccination status of the team is quite good – I think we got all boostered who are eligible to get boostered. For some medical reasons, some were not allowed in that moment but they will be done in the next few days and the rest got the booster a few days ago, and hopefully we can do it with the whole team.

On Mark Leyland joining the coaching staff at Newcastle from Liverpool...

Mark was here longer than I [have been]. He was an incredibly important member of our staff with his post-match analysis and the analysis he did for the players, with the players, all this kind of stuff. And a top guy on top of that. But he had the chance to get a more senior role at Newcastle, which we couldn't offer here, and he was eager to make the next step in his career. Now we could've said, 'You can only start in three, four weeks or whatever', all these kind of things. But in this football world in the moment, everybody knows everything anyway – apart from the line-up, and Mark doesn't know our line-up for tomorrow. But he knows obviously how we play football, but if anybody with a football brain has a closer look [they will know] how we play football, so there's not too many secrets anymore. We were happy to let him use this opportunity, and it is an opportunity for him. Good people should be treated in a good way and that's what we did.

On keeping all members of the squad 'ready' during this busy period...

Everybody is involved and everybody must be ready. I have now no special things to offer. We play five games in 13 days, so there's no 'have a look' or whatever. We have to play, in an ideal world, the best football possible then recover pretty quickly and then get focused again and go again. That's what we have to do – the whole squad. But that's not new. I'm not here since a few days, I'm here for a few years now and that's how it is. This time is very demanding for everybody but that's how it is.

On a timely return to training for Roberto Firmino and Curtis Jones...

Yes, absolutely. Bobby trained completely normal yesterday, so I would say he's in contention. And Curtis had the first session like partial with the team, so he's not far off. Timing-wise, [it] couldn't be better, to be honest. How we all know, busy period, we need a full squad and getting two players of this calibre is obviously good news. So, that's it.

On patience being key to the team’s recent results and whether it will be needed against Newcastle…

Yes, we need that – a football kind of patience, of course. But the difference between the Wolves and Aston Villa games and the games we played before, when everybody asked us and we had this long streak of scoring more than two goals or whatever, is we didn’t use the chances. I think we all agree we could have scored against Wolves more than once and against Aston Villa as well. The chances, we didn’t use. That’s the kind of patience you always need in football, that you really work really hard, but patient and direct – as direct as possible – until the final whistle because there’s always a chance to score a goal obviously. That you are in a situation that one goal is enough to win a game, you have to defend on your absolute top level and that’s what we have to do as well.

Newcastle, when you look at the team which played the last game, that’s a really good football team. In all positions really good players. The Leicester game was obviously, when you watched it, not a 4-0; it was a 4-0 obviously but it didn’t look like. They had their chances, they had their moments, they had possession. That’s the team we expect and not the team who lost 4-0 against Leicester. Obviously Newcastle don’t have endless time to get out of that situation and after us they face I think City and United, if I’m 100 per cent right, so obviously it doesn’t get much easier. So we expect them fighting for absolutely everything. We have to make sure we are ready for that fight. Thank God, in this moment we play at home in Anfield. The people were brilliant against Aston Villa and that’s the minimum performance we need again from the stands. From the first second we have to be there really and make sure we get the result we want and not the other way round.

On the changes he has observed at Newcastle since Eddie Howe came in…

More possession, more shots on target, more shots in general – so, obviously more offensive things. I know Eddie for a long time now as a colleague and we played against Bournemouth quite frequently. You can see glimpses of the Bournemouth style. They played now 4-4-2 in the majority of the games but with Bournemouth against us at Anfield when we won 2-1 [in March 2020] and they caused us some problems, they played a 4-5-1 so they might consider that, these kinds of things. Eddie is a few weeks there and of course you can see his influence.

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Coming up on BT Sport...

• December 16: Liverpool v Newcastle United
• December 26: Liverpool v Leeds United