Press conference: Final-day plans, top-four race and Palace
Liverpool know there's a 95-minute job still to be done as they aim to complete the season in the Premier League top four, explained Jürgen Klopp.
The Reds wrap up a challenging 2020-21 campaign at home to Crystal Palace this Sunday, with 10,000 supporters set to be inside Anfield for the 4pm BST kick-off.
Victory for Klopp’s men against the Eagles will secure Champions League qualification unless Leicester City beat Tottenham Hotspur by a four-goal greater margin.
Read what the manager had to say about the final day during his pre-match press conference below…
On Liverpool’s objective going down to the final day of the season, and how they brought themselves back into contention…
Actually, I can’t remember a season where it didn’t go to the wire, because it was pretty much always there was a final, whatever final – Europa League, Champions League or we had to fight until pretty much the last matchday for qualification for the Champions League or something like that. Even at Dortmund it was like this, always long; Mainz, to stay in the league was always long [and] when we got promoted. So I am actually really used to stress until the last matchday.
So, what did we do? We just found stability, created confidence again or got it back, and scored goals in the right moments and conceded less, let me say it like this. That helped as well. It was just what we had to do so far. But honestly, all the numbers you mention now [regarding Liverpool’s form], they have absolutely nothing to do with Sunday. Because these kinds of games – when three games are that important – pretty much everything can happen. And I really think it makes sense to know about that before you start the game even. Nobody should expect the perfect game, like in the sense of an early lead and all these kind of things. You have to fight for it. I respect Crystal Palace too much, what they want to give Roy [Hodgson] in his last game maybe as a manager. I am pretty sure they want to give their absolute everything, rightly so, like the last few opponents did as well. Yes, it will still be a tough cookie.
And it’s an interesting one because obviously we have supporters back. I would like to use the opportunity to welcome them all, you cannot imagine how much I’m looking forward to seeing you all again – at least, 10,000 of you – but it’s really important with all the excitement we feel that we don’t lose patience after a minute or something like that if it’s not going in the right direction. We need the best support possible – very positive, very encouraging and all these kind of things – like we left each other, I don’t know when, years ago it feels like.
That’s it, pretty much. It will be a really intense game. We fight for the Champions League, [so] it should be an intense game.
On how much attention will be paid to the scorelines in the Chelsea and Leicester games…
Because of the situation we are in, I don’t think we should pay too much attention. It’s like this: if nothing really strange happens and Leicester are all of a sudden five or six-nil up and it’s still 0-0 at ours and these kind of things, I don’t think we should have a look there because we have it in our own hands anyway. We will not be involved in that – the team not, I will not be involved – until something really strange happens and then I am pretty sure somebody will tell me, ‘OK, this result in the moment is not enough, so we should go to the next gear’ or whatever. If that’s possible, because in my mind we play an absolutely top game, that’s the plan: we are on top of everything of our game. That’s the plan and then nobody should have to remind us of anything. No, we will not really look there until something happens which is interesting for us.
On the 7-0 win at Palace in the reverse fixture…
That’s not really helpful, that we won that game 7-0. From a goal difference point of view it’s obviously helpful, but apart from that it’s not really helpful. It was not a 7-0 game that day if you remember that game; Crystal Palace had chances on their own where we thought, ‘Wow, how didn’t they score in that?’ So it was more a crazy one, really open, chances here, chances there. The big difference was we used pretty much all of ours, I think we had seven shots on target and seven goals. We had a lot of games with more shots on target and much lesser goals. This was just one of these lucky days you don’t have a lot in your life. And this game will not be like this, unfortunately. That’s clear. It’s always like this. Crystal Palace want to make sure these kind of things will not happen. I saw a game like this only once in my life and I am already long in the business, [which] means nobody has to worry that it will be like that. We just have to win the game, that’s what we know. And we know as well we have to fight for this. The result from the first game is 0.0 relevant for us. It’s not even information. There are moments when you use pictures of the first game you played against a team, what you did against them; none of these pictures are in this meeting tomorrow for the boys.
On whether his belief in finishing in the top four ever wavered and how much satisfaction he would take if Liverpool achieve it…
I didn’t really think about it, to be honest. It was not that I said in each meeting, ‘If we want to go [to] then we have to…’ That’s in the last two games it was actually like this, that it was clear now the door opened a little bit for us. Two things: when the door is open you still have to step through. That’s what the boys did so far, but not finally. That’s the only thing we have to focus on. I’m really far away from making any resume or whatever and thinking about where we have been and all these kinds of things, it’s just not the time for that. Our time, we played now last Thursday, Sunday, Wednesday and will play the day after tomorrow again. That’s the toughest period you can imagine and we have just to make sure that we recover properly and then take one session to prepare the game. Then try to be at our best against Crystal Palace. Then we will see after the game where it leads us to. It was a strange season, nothing will change that. It was an incredibly intense season, nothing will change that. But we have it now in our hands to make a top, top finish of the season. But it’s not done yet: there’s an opponent, it’s football and everything can happen. And that’s why we are really not even close to any kind of celebration or whatever. We are really only focused on the 95 minutes we have to play.