Q&A | A round-up of Klopp's pre-Burnley press conference

The Liverpool manager fielded questions from reporters at the AXA Training Centre ahead of Wednesday evening's trip to Burnley. 

The Reds need a win at Turf Moor in their penultimate fixture of the campaign in order to sustain the push for Champions League qualification. 

Read on for a summary of the boss' pre-match comments...

On whether Alisson's winner at West Bromwich Albion has brought a different kind of feeling for these final two games...

In that moment nobody thought about the next two games, obviously we were all just only celebrating the moment. But, of course, in football and life like this, if you have some downs you are influenced by [them], if you have a high you should be influenced by it as well. That was obviously a high for us and it doesn't make the job easier at Turf Moor, but it changed the mindset a little bit. That's how it is. It kept us in the race, that's the most important thing. Yes, it was a very special moment, a very special goal from a very special player, which makes it obviously all very special. Honestly, in the dressing room I have never watched a goal more often directly after a game than this goal. Since then, it's all fine. We know exactly nothing really happened apart from we are still in the race. But we are not even close to thinking we would be already halfway through because we know high the hurdles are in front of us.

On the potential achievement of finishing in the top four...

I don't want to compare with other things. It's very complicated and difficult as well to win whatever because you have to be consistent. Even in a season you are winning whatever, it's never without any setbacks or any problems during a season, so I don't want to compare it. But it would be massive, that's true, absolutely massive and much better than we would have thought maybe a few weeks ago when it was out of sight for us. That we can come that close since then, we won a few games, brought ourselves in the position we are in now, and now we want to use that – that's clear.

On Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson leaving at the end of the season and whether he could see himself managing at the age of 73...

OK, let's start with the second part of the question – no. No chance. Hopefully I'm healthy and alive then, that would already be a great achievement. You're young enough obviously, if I'm still on the bench then you can remind me on that and tell me what rubbish I spoke years ago. But it's not in my plans at all. Roy Hodgson, one of the very, very greats of our business. Years and years ago when really early, I said it a couple of times, my former manager Wolfgang Frank, who introduced in Germany the ball-orientated defending, he showed us a lot of videos of Arrigo Sacchi but as well from Roy Hodgson from his time in Switzerland. He was obviously part of the inventive team of this kind of style. So I knew him long, long, long before I met him, but when I met him it was even better because he's a really, really nice guy, I have to say. 

Obviously high-energetic that he obviously thinks he has to do this stressful job in this slightly advanced age. But he did a great job again. Staying in the Premier League is for all teams who are not fighting around the European spots a massive achievement – and he did that again and again with Crystal Palace. He obviously formed there a group which followed him completely and I have to say I couldn't have more respect for what he did, how long he did it and on which level he did it. I'm not sure he will retire, maybe he stops only at Crystal Palace, searching for the next challenge – I would be not surprised about that. But on the day when he finally finishes, football will lose a really great person of the game. 

On whether he can summarise why finishing in the top four would be such an accomplishment... 

No, because I don't want to speak about it. For us it's very, very, very important – you saw that in the faces of the players when Ali scored the goal. We can speak about what it means if we have to speak about it on Sunday after the game, but now we play Burnley. And I really don't like these talks like we would have made it already before we play Burnley and Crystal Palace. That would be, in my mind at least, disrespectful and I don't want to think about what it means. In the moment it would mean, for us, if we have on Sunday still a final for us, then we had a positive result at Turf Moor. That's all what it is and depends on other results. If we don't win on Wednesday then we don't have a final on Sunday, these kind of things. But we only have to focus on this one game. That it means a lot, I really think I don't have to explain that because you could see that in the celebrations at West Brom.

On whether the squad's injury problems have actually helped the team find a rhythm and stability because of the consistency of team selection…

No, not at all. Not a little bit. The problem we had, injuries obviously started pretty early, that always puts everybody else under pressure. So other players were injured when we started the season – like Ox, for example – then Shaq got some problems, these kind of things. They all came back step by step. But then you usually have a stable formation where you can throw them in – we never had that. We always had to sort, first and foremost, the real problems. That means we had to keep some players more often on the pitch than we would have done in other seasons. The kids, the young boys, were not ready in the beginning to replace the centre-halves; we had to work a lot with them, you cannot just throw them in. With young players especially it's not fair just [to] throw them in the hot water and then realise they are not ready to swim. That makes no sense. That's why it was all a massive challenge for all of us. But it didn't help the rhythm or whatever.

Thiago is an example. Yes, he is a world-class football player but he came as well from a pandemic, after the lockdown in Germany when they started playing again he had to play Bundesliga games and the Champions League final. He came here to a new club with a little, little, little break only; arrived here, got injured and had to restart again with a team that was not settled. That's massive, that's nearly impossible. What he did in these moments is absolutely incredible. Now, things look like more settled, that's clear in the moment with some results going in our direction, which helps as well, [it] gives confidence to everybody. Now it looks different and better. But we are not even halfway there, Thiago is not halfway there, the team is not halfway there. We just have to keep going and improving.

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