Press conferenceJürgen Klopp on transfers, player talks and more

Liverpool’s manager spoke to the media ahead of his side’s meeting with AFC Bournemouth at Anfield on Saturday afternoon.

Read a summary of part two of the briefing below…

Do you feel you need to sign a midfielder before Thursday’s transfer deadline?

There’s really nothing to say about it because we are looking for it and if it is the right player we need him, if it is not the right player we don’t need him.

Do you want a player in before the window closes because of the injuries and how the season has started?

That changed. I know we have had this discussion now since it all started, I am the one who said we don’t need a midfielder and now we go looking for a midfielder – you were all right and I was wrong. That’s the situation but that specific point doesn’t change: if we will do something, then it has to be the right one, that’s how it is.

So, again, Curtis comes back, Thiago not too far off, Diogo not too far off, Joel comes back. That all eases the situation slightly, it would be great if nobody gets on the [injury] list on the other side. But yeah, a really intense time coming up, we know all that. It’s just we cannot change, or we will not change, for that now the way we deal with the situation so there is nothing really for me to say to you in this moment. So, let’s see.

In a week like this, do you have a special meeting with the players where they can get things off their chests?

Yeah, [we had it on] Wednesday. There’s no discussion, it’s more [getting things] off my chest! The good thing about these meetings is that I feel much better after them! It’s not that I shout at the players, not at all, it’s about putting things in perspective, talking about the stuff we did well, the stuff we did not-well, these kind of things. We live in a world where, and we spoke about this plenty of times, everything is judged, everything is under the glass and stuff like this. But in the end only one thing is important: what we really think ourselves about it. We cannot do things to please the outside world, to act in a specific way to please what they do, to make crazy challenges and get a red card. We never were that and we will never be sorting our problems on the back of something else. No, for us, for me, it’s clear. For you I cannot go into detail but of course we talk about pretty much everything, especially about the important things for us, and we try to exclude the not-so-important stuff.

Is the start of this season due to a physical and/or mental hangover from the end of last season?

You mean because of not winning [the Premier League and Champions League]? No, that’s not an excuse. Actually that never crossed my mind, to be 100 per cent honest, that’s not the case. That is a season which is gone. If we want to turn it around in the Champions League, now we know the group. If we want to turn it around in the league, we know the opponents. So, it’s nothing to do with the rest. Even in the Carabao Cup we know the opponent now, even though it’s in November. No, there’s no hangover or whatever and physically… the season we had, we played 63 games, plus international games [so] maybe 70-something and in the summer playing important games. So some players had for sure too many games and then three weeks off, I think the players who played all the games and the internationals as well had around three weeks off. Is that enough? No, probably not, but the boys are used to it.

Again, it’s the start not the finish or the middle part of the season. From all three parts – start, middle, end – I would say doing it a bit the harder way, then I would prefer the start because there are more games to sort it out. But we don’t make our start bigger, so worse, than it is, but we don’t think it’s great. We really want and have to do better but that’s the next chance we have now. For example, the last five years might have looked slightly different but our supporters know if you want to support a club without any kind of drama, without any kind of little lows, then you cannot choose Liverpool. Our people are used to that, so this is now our first proper fightback immediately early in the season and that will take us hopefully to the last day of the season: just us against the rest of the world. Let’s go.

Is there not much you can say to the players that they don’t already know at times like this?

Yes, I can. I am 55 and they are 30 so I have, I’m not sure [how to say it]… I got washed with all kinds of water during my life – I had highs, lows, and it’s all about how you deal with it, that’s how it is. And you always have to question yourself of course, what you make of it, and the situation changed constantly, the perception from the outside changed constantly. The pressure gets bigger, all these kind of things, it’s never the same, and I don’t want to leave the boys alone in moments like this and say, ‘You have to deal with it, get on with it’ or whatever. It’s just about showing perspective, that’s it. Not everything has to be new, sometimes just a reminder to fix a specific point like, ‘From here we go’ or whatever. There are a lot of things that you can do. As a human being when you’re in a team sport and when you’re in a difficult situation you deal with yourself in the first moment, but should not forget you have around you 10 players who are maybe in a similar situation but especially you can use them as a help and can be a help for them as well. These kind of things we forget in moments. So, it was a bit of a long meeting [but] these meetings are always long and after it, how I said, I felt better.