Press conferenceKrawietz on Klopp status, Shrewsbury clash and finding solutions

The Reds begin their campaign in this season’s tournament at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, at the end of a week in which the AXA Training Centre was temporarily closed and the Carabao Cup trip to Arsenal postponed.

With Jürgen Klopp and Pepijn Lijnders isolating due to suspected positive COVID-19 test results, Krawietz took pre-match press conference duty on Saturday.

Read a summary of his chat with the media below…

On whether Klopp can be on the touchline on Sunday…

We hope so, of course. He is well so far, he feels fine but of course as well the regulations are how they are and for this he has to do tests as well. And we hope he will be fine to be in tomorrow, yes.

On Liverpool’s plans for the January transfer window and if the squad needs to be bolstered…

This is of course a long-term club decision but we take the situation like it is. We always try to do our best. We knew about the situation already since a few months, especially that the African players will have to play in this tournament and [are] hopefully successful. But the COVID situation is like it is. If it is necessary to react on this situation in the transfer market, it is of course a club decision but we have to discuss that.

On what he expects from Shrewsbury this weekend…

Yes, Shrewsbury of course will be a tough opponent. Tough because of their quality, this is a team who play proper football. They play quick forward, they will want to attack us for sure, they have threats. They have strong strikers, they have direction in their game. They have a compact defending formation for sure, it is a team that is well managed, you can see that. They will have their targets and our situation is not ideal as well. We trained now since yesterday again and we will try to prepare as good as possible for this game tomorrow. But, of course, we are looking forward to it, we will have an exciting team tomorrow on the pitch and we hope we do as well as we can.

On the excitement among the younger players who could be involved…

I hope that excitement is the right word for that. Looking forward to that game. I hope they can’t wait until the game starts and it is the opposite of being nervous. Of course, we try to make them as confident as they should be and as focused as they need to be. That’s how we try to prepare them for that game. In football it is always like that, it is not about trying to avoid mistakes, it’s all about the reaction on mistakes. Can we expect a perfect set-up for tomorrow? No, of course we can’t but we can always show the right and perfect reaction to what is happening on the pitch. This is what we try to do, a proper team performance with experienced leaders in the team and young players who will get this fantastic experience to play at Anfield and feel the support of our supporters.

On the challenges at the club in the past week…

Of course, you can believe me, this was bizarre, yes. We came into a situation which was too difficult for all of us. We are in a situation [where] we had to stop, we had to shut the training ground down. We always try to play our games, to win our games, but this situation became too difficult to deal with. Of course, at the same time we tried to be as quick back in the normal circumstances. So, yes, this was a busy week somehow; even if we were sitting at home, the mobile phones were glowing. Yeah, this is the situation we faced and this is the situation we are searching for solutions.

On whether Liverpool have considered recalling any players out on loan and if the circumstances around the game make it a 50-50 tie…

First, the situation with the loan players – yes, we have one loan player back and he will probably join the squad tomorrow. Of course, we are searching for options for this game and for the squad for tomorrow nearly everywhere. But we found enough players to build a team and to have a squad for tomorrow. This will be an exciting game tomorrow. I already told you, Shrewsbury is a good team, they will try to cause us problems and it will be our task to find solutions to face this situation, to find our way to play football what we want. Still we have the idea of being dominant on the pitch, still we have the idea to win the ball as quick as possible on the pitch and still we have the idea to play proper football – combine, playing forward, find finishing situations. This is what we are going to try but we know it will be tough.

On how players’ training programmes were managed while the AXA Training Centre was closed…

Training ground closed and shut down means nobody can come here, of course. But we try to stay in contact during these times with our players, like we did during the lockdown period one year ago or even longer. We try to use the modern media options to stay in contact, one. The second thing is, of course, there are no groups which can group together, means as well everybody is on his own. Thanks to our really, really great-working athletic department around the team of Andreas Kornmayer, we were able to find solutions for the players. So the ones who were allowed to go out, they could go for a run outside. If you are not allowed because of quarantine at home, we tried to work with these players as well, giving them an individual programme day by day. This is the way we tried to keep them in shape.