The boss on AC Milan, team changes and pressing

The manager was speaking to reporters at Levi’s Stadium, where the Reds will face the Italian side in their second International Champions Cup fixture.

As well as an injury update on goalkeeper Loris Karius, on the agenda was the possibility of a different line-up to take on Milan, the team’s style of play and analysis of the defeat by Chelsea.

LFCTV GO subscribers can watch the press conference in full by playing the clip below. Not a susbcriber? Find out more here.

Alternatively, read on for a summary of Klopp’s thoughts.

On the significance of these pre-season games…

Today we made a video analysis of the game against Chelsea, so you can use it of course. But obviously it’s pretty sure we will have another line-up at the start of the season. So it gives you some information about what was OK and what was not OK, but of course not the final information about where you are. The challenge and what we have to do is bring all these different groups together, whether they started five days ago, four days ago or three-and-a-half weeks ago. That’s very important. The games are only important but not more important than the sessions we do together. They are another session.

But everybody could see in the Chelsea game under different circumstances, there were no friends on the pitch. That means it is quite hard but that is what we should accept when we think about the Premier League of course. So it’s good. But it’s not that I only think about the games. I have never in my life as a manager thought about the games when we have had training sessions in pre-season. Because we have to do what we have to do, and then you have to play the games after full training. That’s quite intense for the players. It’s a longer time than usual together but not the longest time, so we have to use it and that’s what we’re trying.

On whether Sturridge, Clyne, Benteke, Origi and Wijnaldum will feature tomorrow…

It will be a little different. First of all, the guys who played round about 30 minutes in the game, hopefully we can give them a few more minutes in this game. But we have to respect the rules of the tournament – that you can change three times. Actually it’s no problem but when you have injuries in the moment when we had the injury of Marko [Grujic] before half-time, we waited until half-time but decided only one change. Then the next time we had to take all of them [off] nearly. That’s the thing.

But we want to give as many players as possible match time and we want to be competitive in this game of course. First of all, we need to have a look at how they react on all training sessions, and that’s an all-day update. So it’s not that I have a plan 100 per cent for tomorrow. We have a session tonight and tomorrow morning. Then we will decide about the game. We need to have the ability to play in different formations. In this moment, the players have different fitness levels but I want to see 100 per cent for this moment. We will see who will play tomorrow. The last few days were quite important for the boys. The line-up and squad will change. Ragnar Klavan is OK.

On Liverpool’s style of play…

Actually, I never thought about what I should call this style. It’s about winning football games and developing a team. That means knowing about each other, especially with football things, like which skills we can involve in which moment. We have to learn to trust each other. From my side it’s really to pass the ball as long as you have a solution. Being direct, yes, but not too early. Being patient and a good part of patience is that it offers a kind of self-confidence. Knowing that there will be a moment where it will become clearer that we can do the right thing. We didn’t finish our way until now, but we are in a good way.

Whoever saw the training sessions of my team can say for sure it’s a big improvement, a lot of things have happened in the last few weeks and now we have to bring it all together. We can do what we did three weeks ago or we can do a little bit different, that’s what we did today. We had a video meeting to see if maybe we can use another base together. Most of the players who came later were already here last year so they know a few things. I’m quite happy that we play again. The last game was against a team coached by an Italian guy and I would say with kind of an Italian style. Now AC Milan, for sure they will have good defending and will be well organised. This will happen to us often in the Premier League so for us these pre-season games are really good. In the moment it is very difficult for us to play because of the number of defenders, things like this. We have a lot of players here, but we have not the biggest number of defenders in this moment. Three injuries in that position is not cool, so tomorrow we will try to really work on the solutions for formations.

On pressing and how close the team is to his vision…

No idea. Because I don’t know the finish line, I have no idea where it could end. In our pre-season games we played against a few teams and a few young coaches on the other side and you hear all the way ‘pressing, pressing, pressing, go now’. Especially with pressing, it is all about timing. It’s not about always being there and trying everything. It’s about timing – doing the right thing in the right moment, really create the moment. Of course, more is not bad but it’s not always the best thing. I feel we are in a really good way. I think it makes sense to try to dominate another team in a moment when they have the ball and that’s what pressing is about – to create situations where they can do what they want but actually they cannot.

It’s really interesting, but in the other way, we have to find many more solutions when we have the ball. We already had wonderful games. I’m not sure – maybe you have the stats – we had the most finishing situations but unfortunately we did not always hit the target. But it shows we know the way to get there. Again, to start to believe in our quality and work on it that we are really calm in situations and use the right moment to finish and not always when you see a little bit of the goal. That’s all the things we work on. We know about our quality. I know about our quality, but it’s my job to help the players to show it all the time and I’m really happy with the skills we combined now in the squad. But, of course, we have to create a situation where all the boys can show it all the time – that’s the plan actually for next season.

On an ‘intense’ pre-season...

I don’t want to create a myth or something like this so that you say ‘we are the hardest workers in the football world’. We aren’t, 100 per cent. We spoke already about how hard we train but it was absolutely wrong when I was a player because, unfortunately, our managers didn’t have the knowledge that we have because of a few very smart people who gave us the advice and knowledge about it – how physical training works. But always in life if you only do the things that are easy for you, how could you improve? If you always do the things you like, how could you improve? Of course, it’s about doing a few things you feel are at the edge – you think ‘OK, that’s quite intense’. But actually the only thing we want to do is not to scare the players and make them afraid of our training. It’s more about really creating a base for the games we have to play and I think it makes absolute sense to create a physical base so that you can make it easier in the 85th minute [to make] the right decision because your pulse is not [racing]. So we can be concentrated still.

I don’t think it’s possible for people to bring their best when they are not in the best shape anymore. So that’s what we do but it’s only a part. In the first few weeks we hid most of the running in different exercises. Now actually, we don’t have the time for this and that's a problem. So maybe it feels for one or other players quite intense but it’s not about showing how hard we can be – only about doing the right things. It’s good, it’s intense, but it’s good how I see it and, most of the time, it’s football the main thing we do because we want to improve in football. But sometimes we have to keep the ball on the sideline and run a little bit, but it’s healthy – jogging is healthy, right? These boys are really well-trained boys so they have to jog a little bit quicker. From my side, everything is good. It was intense but not too [intense], I’m pretty sure.