Press conferenceJürgen Klopp on Chelsea clash, pre-season work and more

The Reds travel to the capital on Sunday afternoon for their first fixture of the 2023-24 season, with Mauricio Pochettino's Blues their opponents at Stamford Bridge.

Klopp previewed the encounter with the media at the AXA Training Centre - read on for a summary of his press conference.

On Chelsea and the impact of Pochettino's arrival...

Of course not, we don't know [the impact]. It's two, I think, really good football teams, very talented football teams, [who] will face each other. We watched obviously Chelsea on the tour, whatever we could get from there, from the last games they played, the Dortmund game [and] Newcastle game. A lot of good things. You can see that, it's a really talented team, that's what we have to prepare for. It's a home game for them, the first home game after a long break, if you want, after a disappointing season, that's all clear. So they want to show up, definitely. New manager, Poch is a top manager, so they will show up. We have to be ready. We have to be absolutely ready. The football they played you can see it - Poch is there.

We played against Mauricio often when he was at Tottenham, so you can see a lot of similarities from that time and in the end we don't know exactly. I think Nkunku was a key part of the plans. Very unfortunate for the boy and for Chelsea with his bad injury. I think that was something they really planned with, but they have really good options offensively to solve that. Let's see. It's the first football game, real competitive football game for us this season. We don't want to waste time, or whatever, we really want to go for it, but we have to see how it goes. Everybody asks, and I am more than 20 years in the business, it's always the first game, people say you don't know where you stand exactly, I'm not really interested, to be honest. I want us to 100 per cent [see] what we have that day and from there we go. I think we should give it a proper try.

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On how much optimism he has for the new season after last year...

I'm not sure if my optimism is based on last season, to be honest. I love the pre-season so far. We worked hard, everyone can expect that, I enjoyed it a lot, to be honest, it was really good. The boys were open, the boys were listening, eyes open, ears open, so we did a lot, not only on the pitch, but in meetings as well. We really wanted to learn our game, not again because it must be different to what we did before, but we wanted to make sure that we really go to the next level in our game together.

That's actually what happened but probably you saw the pre-season games, there were moments where we were too open, there were moments where we were not protected enough, that's clear. Then the shouts are loud, I understand that, but it's more an organisation problem. It's nothing to do with individual quality because individual quality is extremely high what we have. It's my job to help the boys organise and to protect each other better in these moments. Besides that, [it's] how I said, I enjoyed the pre-season and now let's go.

On how much of a change there will be in the personality of the team...

We have to grow into that. It's now not that you can just... it didn't happen eight years ago with Hendo [becoming captain], or whenever it was, it will not happen now. It's not about that. We don't have to always say, 'But Millie would've said that and Hendo would've said that, and Hendo would've shouted here, and Bobby would've smiled here.' We should not do it like that. That makes no sense. We have this kind of new start with this Liverpool FC reloaded, if you want, it's an exciting thing. Everybody was asking for changes, rightly so, because we were together for a long time and things went really well and then not that well anymore, stuff like this; timing for a change is probably the biggest challenge in life to find that. Did we do it exactly in the right moment? [It's] difficult to answer but now it happened and that's good.

It's a new chance for everybody, everybody has to step up, the new leadership group, and not only them, so if you look at the players who are not in the leadership group, but have all you need to be a leader, it's absolutely exceptional. The new boys are great; Cody, Dom - 22 [and] captain of Hungary - Macca; outstanding. These boys are there as well. We all share responsibility and it's not that we should give ourselves too much time to grow into it, it's just let's do it. Let's take the responsibility and go from there and don't try to be like somebody. Be the best version of yourself and then you have a good chance to help the team in the best possible way and that's exactly where we try to help the boys.

On what gives him most encouragement about the team heading into the new season…

The sessions I saw. The desire, the concentration, the readiness, the openness. Just that I saw a lot of things where my thought was in that moment, 'OK, they mean business, so let's give it a go.' That's it, you could see it. We are not happy. It's not that I want to remind the boys every day and say, 'By the way, last year was like this and that.' That makes no sense. But it's deep inside, it's there anyway. We want to show up. In a few weeks' time, whenever the draw is, we are really happy to play Europa League; but of course we want to be in the Champions League the year after. There are two possibilities: you qualify for the Champions League or you win the Europa League. Both are pretty difficult but we should give a try for both, I would say, and then we will see if we can do it or not. We have targets, a lot of targets, we are highly motivated. How I said, my good feeling is based on the things I saw and the things we did during pre-season.

On his thoughts on having increased added time in matches…

It's difficult to answer. I know where you're coming from, we have a 90-minute game and in the end you have a net game time ball in play between 50 and 55 minutes and stuff like this. And everybody could ask, 'Where is the ball the other time?' There are obviously moments where the ball is out and that's part of the game and that's completely fine, but how much do we have to extend that in this moment? In the end, if we can get to 55 to 60 minutes ball in play, we will see, that doesn't sound too difficult, I have to say.

When I speak about player welfare, I speak about in general we have too many competitions, we have too many games in general now. But having three or four minutes a game more ball in play, I can't see it now it will make a massive difference. We will see. There will be a massive difference in the end if you have 10 minutes extra time; imagine that, 90 minutes played, it's 0-0 or 1-0 down or whatever and then you see 10… that gives a boost, that will be intense, everybody will go for that. So that will be interesting to watch. I don't know yet exactly how influential that will be. We will see that.

But I understand where they are coming from. I think timewasting got too much in the last years but I think even more so the rhythm breaking was a massive, massive issue that came up in the last years that you thought, 'Oh my God.' You have two or three good situations and the 'keeper stays down for two minutes and you think, 'Hey, what does he have? Nothing?' It's difficult to judge in these moments obviously but that got more and more. From that point of view, I'm quite happy that we try to go for that. I thought it makes sense to give earlier yellow cards. You don't want to have a yellow card for timewasting, especially not after 15 minutes or whatever, so that's clear you might not do it then.

I hope at the end we find a good solution together, that we don't have 10 to 15 minutes extra time and yellow cards everywhere. We need to find a solution. But as a wake-up call - come on, we're actually here to play football and not to let the time run down somehow in the moment when we have the result we want - I think from that point of view I rather think it's good. But, again, more football is really difficult to take in because we are on the edge. There's no doubt about it. I know football people and football fans are like, 'Yeah, but they do this, they do that, they earn this and that.' It has nothing to do with it. We are at the edge. We have to make sure in the future we have to sort that. Unfortunately, there are not as many discussions about it because that costs money and nobody is really happy to do that.

We will see how the next season goes in that department, it will be really interesting. I'm 100 per cent sure I stand out there and if we are 1-0 up and somebody tells me 12 minutes, I will not be over the moon. In the other way, I think, 'OK, that's nearly a half-time, let's go.' We will see.