Press conferenceJürgen Klopp on quadruple talk, Wembley celebrations, Luis Diaz and more

The boss spoke to the media ahead of Liverpool’s Emirates FA Cup fifth-round tie with Norwich City and was asked about his team’s chances of winning the quadruple following Sunday’s Carabao Cup triumph, the need to refocus after Wembley and Luis Diaz’s excellent start to life at Anfield.

Read what Klopp had to say below…

On whether he feels his team are ‘mentality monsters’ again and if so, what chance that gives the Reds of winning the quadruple…

Wow, good times when you were not here! But obviously the questions didn’t get better in that time! When we look now back at the game against Chelsea, I would say the mentality of both teams was on an incredible level. The tempo of the game was incredible, the way both teams tried to close the other team down for 120 minutes - trying to play football yourself, which is difficult, and then the opponent is defending like both teams defended… that showed that there is not any doubt about mentality, but not only us, Chelsea as well. That we then won the penalty shootout 11-10 shows you as well. The concentration level of the whole game was insane, of both teams, really. Goalkeepers, Caoimh’s last save from Lukaku… when you see it back you think, ‘Oh my God, that must be a goal!’ or whatever and Caoimh saves the ball with his foot [because] of the concentration level. That’s how the penalty shootout was as well. So yes, that’s very good and very important.

Now will we have that for the rest of the season? I don’t know, but we will try. But that doesn’t mean… the quadruple, this wonderful story. No team yet in the history of British football ever won the quadruple? Right? That’s because it’s really difficult. We won the Carabao Cup, we are behind City in the Premier League, we play Norwich tomorrow night after playing 120 minutes on Sunday, then we play West Ham. The fun part about your job is that you count the points before we play the games but we have to play them still. So it’s not that we are even close to thinking about any crazy stuff like that, we just want to try to make sure that the boys are fit enough to face Norwich in a proper way.

On whether he sees it as a compliment that Liverpool are being talked about as potential quadruple winners…

That they think we have the chance to do so? You could see it as a compliment but I don’t need these kind of compliments, to be honest, because it doesn’t feel like that. It’s not that we think, ‘We are close to winning the quadruple’. We are close to nothing in the moment, we are just still in three competitions. That’s all we are, like some other teams are as well. It’s better that people think we can do good things instead of thinking we are useless, but it’s not very important or even helpful because how I said, we face a lot of really good football teams between now and the end of May.

On how he stops himself and his players from getting carried away amid talk of the quadruple…

I don’t have to stop myself and the boys not as well. I’m not sure how you all get to that story because… OK, the only team that could win the quadruple is us because we won the first competition but even City, with all the quality they have in the last few years, couldn’t win the quadruple. That says pretty much everything because there are so many teams. Again, starting with Norwich is already the biggest problem we have and then we talk about West Ham and all these kind of things, and who else is coming up I don’t even know. It’s really difficult and that’s why nobody has to dampen any excitement down, it’s just the reality. The reality to win something is that you have to be focused on the next step and not on the one after that, otherwise you will struggle. That’s what we do.

On the importance of the team refocusing on Norwich and whether there are ‘tired legs’ in his squad after the final…

Again, we will see. I don’t think it’s a big problem because it’s pretty rare that you win something and then the whole decisive part of the season is only starting, but the boys - I have so much faith and trust in them, there is no problem with focusing. It’s easy. Everybody told us already there is one competition you didn’t win and that is the FA Cup, so thank God we play FA Cup tomorrow night. The only problem is we play a Premier League team which has some issues, I heard that already, injury-wise but they cannot make a lot of changes. We will play a side we have faced already and had some problems. We have to make changes because we played 120 minutes so we will see who will do that better. No game is decided before it, but my smallest problem at the moment is to think that they [his players] could fly now and they will not work anymore… so I’m confident that we take the game very seriously and I’m very looking forward to the atmosphere the people will create because there was an incredible atmosphere at Wembley, I have to say. But I think that not everybody who was at Wembley will be in the stadium tomorrow as well so if you want to celebrate the team, do it with the 95 minutes or if we need longer, hopefully not, the best atmosphere we can create. That would be really helpful.

On whether he had to limit the team’s celebrations after the final…

No. We just waited for the plane, until we got on the bus everything was in time. The main problem we had was the doping control because that took obviously the longest time, which I was surprised [about]. You can only have that much time for doping control when your team is anti-alcoholic. Obviously the party was in the dressing room and then we were all on the bus and then we were still waiting for Caoimh, I think he was the last if I am right. Then we had loud music on the bus, no music on the plane, maybe some music in the cars and then we were home at 12.30. Then you cannot sleep, or at least I can’t, but we gave the boys the day off yesterday. Here we are again, training again and the celebrations were not too much.

On Diaz’s adaption to Liverpool and whether his substitution on Sunday was just due to fatigue…

‘Just’ fatigue? Fatigue is enough. Yeah, he did really well [in the final]. We need this kind of quality obviously and, how we said before, we didn’t confuse him too much with too much information. He knows how we want to play and how he has to play and he’s doing really well. You are right: for a start, incredibly well. I don’t think too much about it but just hope it will stay like this as long as possible, or forever in the best case. He had nothing, we just took him off because we saw he got tired. He was tired earlier but he was still fighting really hard. It was an incredibly intense game, I have to say. I’m not sure I saw a final like this. OK, when one team is up then obviously why should it be intense when one team is managing the game and the other one is chasing it. In this game both teams were going for it. The intensity was absolutely insane.