The manager held his pre-match press conference today, where he gave the latest Reds injury news and discussed Mohamed Salah’s display last weekend.
Read on for a summary of the key points in the rest of his briefing, including the title race situation and how training plans are influenced during the run-in…
On whether Liverpool’s approach will change now that they are behind Manchester City…
The good thing is we don’t have to change really because we never thought about what the other teams are doing. The plan is clear: we have to win football games. That’s difficult enough. City play on Saturday so we will probably know the result before we start our game. There is no reason to make a big fuss of it. We are in a position we like to be in; we liked the position before. It’s not a problem. We always said we wanted to be in a position to fight for the top spot in the league and we are still in it. That’s all we need to be positive, optimistic and excited in a very positive way about the challenge.
Our only problem this weekend is Burnley actually, that’s enough. We have to be really good to beat that team because what Sean Dyche is doing there is just amazing. Since I came in, they always had probably not the best circumstances in the league but keeping that club in the league constantly, and with a difficult start this season and now being five points ahead [of the relegation zone]. They had a good run in the last couple of weeks, maybe the last two results were not that good. But we know it will be really tough and that’s what we prepare for.
On how training sessions are influenced by the intensity of the run-in…
We had a good training week – it’s a long one, that’s good, and we could do a lot of things. Hopefully we can see that in the game. I like that. If you have time to train you always have to really work hard. If you don’t have time to train you cannot work hard in training because you only recover and more prepare slight tactical changes or whatever you have to do for the next game. But this week we could do a lot and we can do a lot today, for example. That’s very important. But you cannot then only play rondos through the week and hope players don’t get injured. You have to be really focused on the things you want to improve or keep for the rest of the season, and there’s a lot. I like the week we had. But now the most intense session of the week should always be the game. We should be ready for that, we have to.
On whether he expects Burnley to play a similar way to the meeting at Turf Moor earlier this season…
For us, the game at Turf Moor is not the most important for analysis because it was three months ago and there were so many games in between. They tried playing five at the back a couple of times; if I’m right, it didn’t work out 100 per cent result-wise. So we should expect four at the back, four in midfield, two strikers. Barnes and Wood are really good, quick, good in the air, deflected balls going in behind. They are good on the wings, coming in behind midfield, pushing up, centre-halves, full-backs, a lot of crosses. That’s what we should expect from that game.
It’s not that they have the majority of possession in the games usually, so that means we need to create, we need to have ideas, we need to be in a very lively way but patient as well – that’s the challenge for all these games. Historically, against Burnley it was always difficult because they have a really high motivation level always, they are really fighting, they never give up. I don’t think they have a lot of high results when they lose, they always stay in the game. When you have to make the analysis and watch the last three or four games, you have to say ‘respect’. They beat Tottenham and that doesn’t happen a lot of times. That was very good, of course. The last two games were obviously slightly different but I’m pretty sure they are really looking forward to the game on Sunday because they see and feel they have a chance. We have to make sure that will not happen.
On the impact of a 12 o’clock kick-off…
When we play at 12 o’clock, somebody always asks that question. I hope we stopped that; I don’t think our record is that bad anymore, maybe it was. It was for sure because of me because I was not used to it – I think the first time we played the Europa League on Thursday and then we had to go to Swansea. That was the first time I was tired in the meeting. That really doesn’t happen because I wake up early anyway. That’s gone, we don’t have these issues anymore. Our people are very important, we spoke a lot about that – we need atmosphere at 12 o’clock. I said it last time as well – if you have a ticket for the stadium, go to bed at 10pm latest on Saturday night, don’t drink and be on your toes from the first until the last second.