Jürgen Klopp Q&A | Brighton, selection decisions, Lallana and more
Jürgen Klopp answered questions on a wide range of subjects during his press conference to preview Liverpool’s meeting with Brighton & Hove Albion.
The Reds welcome Graham Potter’s side to Anfield on Saturday afternoon and are looking to maintain their unbeaten start to the Premier League season.
Read our round-up of Klopp’s pre-match media briefing below…
On whether Liverpool will need to be at their best to win the Premier League this season…
Yeah, but that’s pretty much the case for all of us, not only us. This is just the standard of the league and to be – not now at the end of October, but in March, April or May – in that area of the table, that means you have to perform on an incredibly high level and to be incredibly consistent and all these kind of things. In this moment we don’t know if we will be, so that’s always the thing you can never be sure about and that’s why it’s so important that we had a good start. We had a good start so far, but obviously other teams had good starts well. Nothing happened, really, in the table – obviously some clubs feel that they came a bit short in this early part of the season, but we all know that can change pretty quickly and we try to be as consistent as somehow possible. For that we need to be ready, for example, for tomorrow, which is one the trickiest games in the Premier League because of the work Graham is doing at Brighton and the way they play. That’s just the Premier League, there is no game which you can take a little bit easy. Not at all, you have to be always at your absolute best.
On how he is managing to keep his players happy while rotating…
I don’t think that’s possible to be honest, and I don’t think I did it! You should ask all the players in the squad. The thing we have to do is win football games, especially when you play for Liverpool. When you are in football you learn early that you have to accept the decisions a manager makes and my team is doing that obviously. That doesn’t mean that they are always happy about the decision, they just accept them. The job for the player is to be always that determined, that good in training, that in the moment when you come in you are really influential. That’s the deal and that’s the deal in each football team in the world and that’s the case here as well. I don’t try to keep them happy, yes I want them to be happy but I want them to be angry as well when we play an opponent who wants the points - our points, if you want. It’s just the things we do over the weeks and over the months and that’s the situation we are in. Nothing happened yet, what is it, matchday 10 now? Come on, there are 28 after that to come so obviously nothing happened! It’s just a really OK start so far, but even in the start we had our downs, maybe not result-wise too much but we had moments where we were all not happy with so we have constantly things to improve and that’s the only thing we are concerned about and not that we won games with a ridiculous result or whatever, where you think, ‘OK, how can that happen constantly?’ It will not and we are not silly enough to think that. To win a football game, first and foremost you have to make sure that you are ready to defend and that’s what we try to make sure for tomorrow again. All the rest is how you can build on that and we will see how we can do it.
On what kind of challenge he is expecting from Brighton…
I'm not sure if you saw the Brighton-[Manchester] City game last week. So, it looks like from the scoreline a pretty clear thing and maybe the first half, yeah City was really good. But I think two goals in the first half were counter-attacking goals and then when you look at the possession, I think it was 52-48 if I’m 100 per cent right, but it was a big one for Brighton. That’s a football-playing side and not just playing football, they are a real threat. They try to create, they defend well, I think they didn’t score yet incredible big amounts – I think nine goals – but they conceded only nine and four of them in the last game, which was a really strange one from a conceding point of view. I think there would have been a shout that the first goal could have been a foul on the goalie maybe and then you never know how the game will be. I saw the second half as well and they were incredible. To keep the ball like they did and pass the ball like they did against City is a really difficult thing to do and they did it. So we know what they are capable of but we are not City and we play obviously slightly different and yes, that’s what we want to do as well. We want to cause them problems and yes, we lost the last game against Brighton here so that’s another warning sign - not that I needed it, but it is. But the big difference, obviously, [is that] Anfield will be packed and that helps us usually. But not alone, we have to be really good and we need the people with the right understanding tomorrow. This is not a game where you dominate an opponent or stuff like that; they will have their moments, that’s not to avoid. That says everything about the quality of Brighton. They will have their moments, we have to run a lot, we have to close gaps, we have to be really spot-on defending-wise and then obviously with the ball as well. So, it will be a tough one but I’m looking forward to it and I couldn’t respect more what Graham is doing there, I am really a big admirer of his work. It was always difficult since he is there and I have to say he is a top-class manager. Nothing else to say.
On whether Ibrahima Konate’s performance at Old Trafford has given him a selection headache at centre-back…
I wouldn’t call it a headache but a few decisions I have to make, obviously. But thank God – it’s always a good sign when you have to make decisions because it means you have options. Really bad times are when you don’t have options and the decisions are pretty much in front of you and you have no influence on it. So there are some [decisions] but not too many obviously, and not too difficult, and it’s always about who looks in the moment the most likely to help us to win a game. This decision, I make already for a few years and I will do it this time as well and hopefully again it will be the right one.
On how he would compare his current team to the one that went unbeaten until late-February in the 2019-20 Premier League season…
I think the team didn’t change too much, right? Gini is out, that’s clear, but all the rest should be pretty similar. Yeah, Ibou is in now, Diogo is in now, Thiago - unfortunately not available - but is around. Actually, I don’t actually think about these things, ‘Are we better than 18 months ago?’ It's not too important, you have to be as good as you can in the moment and yes we have to improve and yes there is space for improvement, we know that. I know how it sounds but the world is a bit like this: you win 5-0 against United and everything is perfect, but it was not. It was not. United had clear-cut chances which we gave them and we shouldn’t rely on luck or Ali or stuff like this in these moments, so we could have done better. That’s how we spoke at half-time, being 4-0 up, because it’s necessary. I told the boys, ‘Now, in this moment it’s really important that you believe me: we have to play better, otherwise we open up the game for them because they score one, they score two, whatever.’ Things like this can happen. We are not worried about that, it’s just that I saw in the first half we gave too much away and that’s the things we have to improve. And not only in that game, we have to improve it in general. Of course on the other side when you do offensive stuff you have to finish the situations off and there are moments, obviously, where it clicks and there are moments where it is not clicking. So far it clicked in a lot of moments and that’s why we have some really impressive scorelines but we don’t expect that to happen all the time and we have no problem with winning a game 1-0. Absolutely not, it’s a bit more nervy obviously but it’s still OK, and that’s what we have to be ready for again. Where we have to improve and then be then stable and consistent is defensive; how we work when the opponent has the ball. Actually there is no reason why somebody should get through if we do it really well, but because we are human beings always things can happen. But even for that we need to have a solution so the next one we can sort it. That’s something where we can 100 per cent improve. Offensively we can as well but that’s more difficult when you see the goals we scored so far.
Inside Training: Reds prepare for Brighton clash
On the importance of Adam Lallana when he was at LFC and whether he set the standard in terms of pressing at the start of Klopp’s reign…
Not only at the start, until the end. I miss Adam still to be honest. We obviously don’t have plenty of sessions during the week because we play that often but Adam set the standard from the first to the last day pretty much, and that was really impressive. What I loved about him [was] a football player with the technical skills he has, and then [also] this working mentality, is really rare. I think we all agree, if Adam would have been a little bit less often injured, that could have been still on another level - and it was already great. So, one of the best players I ever worked with, an absolutely incredible person as well. I am really looking forward to seeing him again.
On how difficult it has been for Joe Gomez in terms of not playing as often as he would like following his injury…
That’s absolutely not easy, that’s clear, but it was always clear that we had to react in our situation and we had to bring in a centre-half. I think everyone agreed on that and then it was always clear as well that in the moment when all four or five – and really, I always have to mention it, when you saw Nat Phillips playing the second half against Preston, that’s a completely different player to the player he was a year or two ago. A top-class centre-half and he is not playing as well. Joey didn’t play yet but that’s how it is after the long injuries and stuff like this. Then we decided for Joel, which made absolute sense, now Ibou came in in a situation. We have to deal with Joey, in the beginning especially, we try to deal still with the intensity… now we are not even half through the season and we talk about these kind of things. Hopefully no one gets injured through the year but that’s a footballer’s life. You have to be on top of your game for the moment when you come in and in that moment you have to convince everybody, and that’s how it is. The boys get on really well with each other, all five of them. That’s really nice to see, so they respect each other a lot and we will need them and we will need Joe. Joe’s qualities are incredible, we all know that, we saw that in a lot of moments on Wednesday. But it’s just now we have now top-class players only in that position and that makes it a bit harder when you are not in the line-up in the moment. But it was always like this in football - the only thing you can do is to keep working really, really hard and your moment will come.