During the second part of his pre-Sheffield United press conference, the Liverpool manager talked in depth about the unique demands the current campaign has and will place on footballers.
Klopp also assessed the prospect of Gomez and Matip combining at the back in the absence of Virgil van Dijk, and explained his admiration for the social campaigns being led by Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford.
Read a full transcript below.
On liaising with the club’s medical department regarding player fitness and availability…
Let me say it like this, professional football on the level we play it is a little bit like Formula One in comparison to driving a normal car. Most of the issues the boys have during the week, none of you would probably even mention because you don’t make a sprint in the next moment or up to 50 sprints in the next one-and-a-half hours. For us, it is constantly that we have to judge what is normal in that moment, what the boys feel, or what the physiotherapists feel touching their muscles. Is it a bit too much? Do we have to be careful? Or where can we just ignore it and all these kind of things. That is really challenging, to be honest. We have a lot of discussions in that department – with the medical department – always. The sports science in comparison to the time I studied it or even earlier – the ‘90s, late ‘90s and stuff like this – nobody knew a lot about recovery and how long you need, it was just fit or injured and in between there was pretty much nothing. Now, with the number of games we play and with the schedule…
Look, I said it before the Everton game, a massive challenge for us is when the boys play on Wednesday night. If they played in Liverpool on Wednesday night and then Saturday at 12.30, the difference between Saturday 12.30 and Saturday eight o’clock like we do now is massive, it’s massive these few hours. The body needs a specific amount of time to recover and nobody can decrease that or make it quicker. You can do it obviously with some things, but you cannot do it in 20 hours. We always have this problem around the Christmas period when nobody is interested in listening about Boxing Day and then two days later play again and all these kind of things. It is a challenge. We deal with human beings; we ask for a lot but we cannot perform wonders or miracles, it is just not possible. But they have to go again and nobody cares about when they played the last time and that’s just the situation. The medical department and the coaches are obviously very often in conversations about that and it is difficult to judge that. I would say most of the time we are probably right, all of us we find the right solutions, but sometimes we have no idea what really will happen and pray or hope for the perfect outcome. That’s why it makes it so tricky in these times, but it is for all the teams who are involved in international football, it’s all the same. But we don’t play them all of the time, we play teams who played last Saturday or last Sunday the last time, so that makes a massive difference. Probably people think that is fair enough because one team has more players or better players or whatever and the other team has more time to train. That’s the situation, since yesterday that’s the situation.
This year, with the triple-headers in the international break, it’s really new, that was never before and it was an incredible challenge to play the 12.30 game on Saturday because the South American guys came back from Peru, which is absolutely incredible and for that they played an absolutely exceptional game. That’s why, yes, we have discussions with the medical department and we take their advice and when the Doc comes to me [and says] this player cannot play, I cannot say: ‘Yes he can!’ So I have to wait until the last minute pretty much to make my final decisions in these weeks. I’m used to that and so I still try to find the best solution.
On the prospect of Gomez and Matip forming a defensive partnership and the fact they have never started together before…
The reason for that is because I think Virg played pretty much all the games and one of them was injured. As long as Dejan Lovren was still here and Dejan was in that moment fit [he could play]. I didn’t know they had never played together, I didn’t know that, but they can play together – not a shadow of a doubt. As I said for the Fabinho and Joe pairing, they need to get used to each other and the full-backs need to get used to them. The more stability you have in this line, the better. We never had that really, especially one position was always with a lot of changes. They will fight together, there is no doubt about that. It is football and it didn’t become rocket science overnight. We can help them with information but then they will get tested every three days, that’s the situation.
On whether this is the most challenging season ever for a manager, in terms of handling players’ fitness…
It will become [so]. It is already and will be. Life is more challenging than what I ever experienced in my life, and is with football no different. It’s no different. That’s what we talk about constantly, we try to find solutions and we need help from everybody just to bring the boys through it. I will not moan about anything but in this schedule thing, we just have to make sure that the teams who play midweek don’t play 12.30 on Saturday. For example, if you play Tuesday [in the] Champions League, then 12.30 Saturday is fine. If you play Wednesday then Saturday 12.30 is oh my God. You do it once: ‘OK, come on, let’s do it.’ But you do it twice, three times, stuff like this, that’s the problem. That’s really the problem. We need to have the time to rest them. I know people don’t want to hear that and we can go back to all the other things people say about professional football players, but in the end what I said, it’s like Formula One – everybody can drive a car but it’s difficult to drive 300mph in a pretty close area and then you hope your brakes work. It’s pretty much what professional football is – all on the highest speed, all with the highest intensity. And for that, you need the best breaks you can get; brakes like in a car, and the most time you can get. That’s all. I’m 100 per cent not the only one who thinks like that, I know all the other managers involved in international football see it exactly the same. But, how we know, that doesn’t change a lot usually.
On what he would say about Rashford…
Yes, I’m not sure I can find any better words than other and much smarter people than me said about it. But what Marcus started there is absolutely incredible and it’s so nice. With all the rivalry between the clubs and stuff like this, in these moments as footballers – and as human beings – always united. It’s just nice to show in a time when obviously a lot of people who are really in charge of something and don’t show any sign of proper leadership, that a boy grown up in difficult circumstances, blessed with a sensational talent obviously, never forgot his roots and where he is coming from. That he has to do it then is a bit of a shame but is wonderful as well. I hope his mother is really proud of him. I don’t know him but even I am. He plays for United, which makes it really tricky! But it’s really an absolutely wonderful, wonderful thing. Whatever praise he got – and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want the praise now anymore, it’s nice to do it once – that’s how it is. Now he is in the role and now he is the role model for that and that’s great. And it will not distract him from his football things. But, yeah, absolutely great and happy about it.
On the cities of Liverpool and Manchester uniting…
Yes, that just shows that football can do really wondrous [things] in moments. And it shows as well that the subject is really serious. That’s why everybody puts the rivalry aside and just thinks about more important things in life. How I said, really happy that we can show this solidarity in these moments.