Q&AJürgen Klopp press conference: Southampton, squad challenge, youngsters and more

The Reds boss covered a wide range of topics as he answered questions from reporters at the AXA Training Centre ahead of the fifth-round clash against Saints at Anfield.

Read on for a summary of the boss’ media briefing below…

On his selection considerations for Wednesday night and whether some players might need a rest…

Yeah, in an ideal world you would think about these kind of things. But we obviously don’t live in an ideal world. I didn’t make the line-up yet, I have still two-and-a-half hours’ time until we have the meeting, then we train after that – so three hours. So, we will see how that [looks] when the players arrive and then they get checked. Yesterday was kind of a massive recovery day and appreciation day for winning the League Cup, so only the very young boys trained yesterday, had a proper session. All the others recovered.

Today we will have a session, we need to have a session and it’s the only one before the game. When I get all the information and when the players arrive here and I can look in their eyes and I can see who might be ready, who’s not ready, then I will make the line-up. In the end, I hope and I’m pretty positive that it will be a decent line-up. But let me say it like this, what an atmosphere can do we realised now quite a few times, but it would be really helpful if we could create something special on Wednesday night as well. I know I ask that quite a lot but it’s a tricky time but somehow anyway pretty positive and we would like to keep doing that, but we need our people for that, there’s no other chance. There is only one advantage we can have tomorrow night, that’s Anfield and that’s what we need.

On the possibility of the club holding an end-of-season parade, given the Carabao Cup win and his departure in the summer…

That’s the one part which is not so cool, that it could be seen as that [a farewell for him]. I don’t think that makes sense. But besides that, I am the biggest supporter of trophy parades, to be honest, I love that. But I don’t decide that, people might be surprised but I don’t decide that, and these kind of things probably have to be prepared from different points of view. But it’s not my business, I’m not in that, no. But if there’s a parade, I will be on the bus, there’s no doubt about that.

On whether there is a requirement to bring everyone ‘back down’ after the Carabao Cup win...

Back down is no problem. That’s really no problem. It’s just you want to take the positive feeling. You want to take the vibe and all of that. No, that’s not a problem. The problem is the lack of recovery time. That’s a problem. Besides that there are no problems. The boys love playing football, obviously, we all could see the love. The boys love digging incredibly deep to grind a result out somehow. Everybody saw that as well and so [it’s] a strange one. We all know how the world is. Everybody says it’s Liverpool against Southampton. Liverpool is a massive favourite and whatever people say anyway [that’s] not too important. But that’s not the case. We need to find a team who is competitive and then we will fight for it. Obviously we all got a really good taste of how Wembley feels on a day like this. We had all different experiences there. We lost there, we won there so it’s a nice stadium anyway, but when you win it’s a completely different place.

It’s not that we don’t want to go there again. It’s not about us. If we can decide it, we go. But for that we have to win tomorrow and a lot of other games. Now for tomorrow we just have to find out who we can line up and then we go. I said before and that’s really the truth [that] as long as we have 11 players, we will have 11, we will go for it. [If] everybody wants to follow or push us in that direction then that’s absolutely welcome.

On facing a third Championship team this season...

I love the Championship. I watched it so often. I watched it last week; Leeds [against] Leicester. I think there was a Bundesliga game on as well. I tried to watch that but then I went to Leicester [against] Leeds; wow. The Championship improved. I don’t know how it was nine years ago, to be 100 per cent honest. I’m not sure I watched it from the beginning. But the football [that] is played and the intensity in the Championship is absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. I saw West Brom playing recently; a real football-playing idea. Leicester obviously. Southampton obviously [have] a real football-playing idea. I don’t think I saw Ipswich but they obviously do well. The league is incredible, [it’s] incredibly difficult. We have a lot of games in the Premier League but the Championship have a few more. It’s quite impressive what’s happening there. It’s really good coaches with really good players and really good clubs.

Of course we played them, were they all three home games? That helps. I don’t want to see the games when people have played at Leicester or at Norwich. How I said, we had a big advantage of Anfield, so that was helpful in these games. We need that tomorrow as well. I cannot respect it more what’s down there. Especially at Southampton as well but they are now not in the best results moment and have an important game on Saturday again. I don’t know exactly how he’s [Russell Martin] weighing it up, my colleague, I don’t know him, I just like the way his team plays football. So, we will see. Before a game we always have a chance. We never have more. So that’s what we will try to take.

On whether the challenge for his younger players is to now perform for longer periods, starting with Southampton...

First and foremost, they don’t have to show anything. I know what you mean. It’s easily misunderstood. The story of Sunday was one of the best football stories I ever heard of. It’s 100 per cent right. Chelsea was younger than us, stuff like this. That’s a different project [but] it’s not about that [and] we don’t compare it. The public might do that, we don’t do that. But our boys played in youth teams [and] U21s, stuff like this, and only came up recently and not trained with us for a long time. That is the absolutely nil experience, but a lot of talent and they just showed that. That’s the situation we have to create for the boys.

If we play more of them now tomorrow from the start or whatever and we have a look [and say], ‘Well, you’re not as good as I thought after Sunday’, that would be horrendous. There’s absolutely no pressure. All that these boys have to do is to really enjoy what they’re doing. How I said, they have to defend like men otherwise you cannot play, but with the ball... when you are 35 you should play like you are a kid. They are not 35 obviously, but they should do that as well. I saw that and I saw them doing that and it obviously helped and it gave confidence. [There are] so many things you cannot buy. Usually you need years for getting these kind of experiences in the flesh. It’s all good. How I said, I don’t know, but it’s possible that a few of them have to start. That’s absolutely clear. We don’t know it yet.

If they do, they will do the job and they will enjoy and we all have to help them with celebrating the right things and not moaning about the wrong things. Please don’t do, ‘Oh.’ That’s horrible; 60,000 people... that’s really not cool. I can tell you I played and only 12,000 people when I played did that and I felt it from [my head] to my toes. That’s not too cool, but besides that it’s a good moment. It’s actually a very bad moment because there’s so many injuries and it’s not good and stuff like this. But what we could do so far and that’s why I love the Luton game so much and why I loved the game on Sunday night so much. We just ignored who we are missing. We just ignored it as much as we can and just thought about how can we set up a team who is still difficult to play, and that’s what we will do again and then we will see.

On the progress of loanees Fabio Carvalho and Tyler Morton at Hull City…

It’s so good to see. I forgot [when I spoke about] good footballing sides [in the Championship] to speak about Hull. I saw them as well. It’s really cool, and Fabio and Tyler are doing really well. I’m so pleased for them. It’s massive, and it is so nice to see Fabio completely confident again. Both are pretty dominant players, playing pretty much in the centre of the team and being involved in quite a lot of moments. The development of both is fantastic. I’m really happy.

On the depth of his squad and the number of changes he has had to make throughout the season…

Actually, our squad is deeper than we thought before the season, to be honest. We didn’t think we needed to figure out how deep it is, but the situation is like this. I said it plenty of times and rightly so, without the kids we wouldn’t be here where we are now. The rest is quite normal because of the amount of games we had in different competitions we played, everybody had game time. Some people probably only look properly at it when we play in the Premier League, [they say] ‘Oh, he has to come on’, but he might have played a week-and-a-half ago in the Europa League [for] 90 minutes, he’s in good shape, he has rhythm. That helped the most, that we shared game time from the beginning so that everybody could have kind of rhythm.

That’s why I’m more than happy with the squad depth. It would be cool now if it was a bit deeper, but that’s how it is and we have to deal with it and we do. It’s really like that and you realise it anyway, that yes two days ago we won a final and it gives you some positive thoughts as well, but even before the game, in a very tricky situation, because of the mood in the dressing room we were really positive. Of course we could have lost that final, we are not blind, we saw the chances, we saw Caoimh’s saves. It’s clear you can lose that. But it was always clear with each team you can lose a final against Chelsea, and we could have lost it that day. But the general feeling around is positive because for whatever reasons we cannot change it anyway, we just have to play the games. But we don’t play the games [just] to be part of them. We want to win the games in any way possible on that day, and now we have to find a way to win the next one.