Jürgen Klopp on title race, overcoming fatigue and Anfield form
Jürgen Klopp covered topics including the Premier League title race, combating players’ fatigue and Liverpool’s home form during his pre-match press conference.
The boss spoke with journalists on Friday afternoon ahead of the champions’ meeting with Manchester City at Anfield.
Read on for a summary of Klopp’s media briefing…
On how a win for Liverpool would alter the title-race picture…
So after two years now getting this question all the time when we were close enough that it might have made some sense, I just don’t see it in the moment. Look, you have to win football games. If you do that often enough then there is a specific moment in the season when it’s clear: ‘OK, now we go for it.’ We were, in the last two years, in that situation. In the moment we are not so why should we think about it? What we have to think about is to collect enough points that it might happen in April or May again, but I don’t know yet so why should we only think about it? We only think about it because we got asked but it’s not important - it’s not what drives you, what gets us up every morning or drives us through the day [that] without being so close to City or whoever is top of the table then we don’t like football or we think it’s not worth working or whatever. That’s not the case. We really try hard in a very, very tricky season and we will continue trying 100 per cent - and Sunday the next time.
On what can be done to combat players’ physical and mental fatigue…
Play football, recover, train, recover, all that stuff. Using each single minute each day you can get to recover, that’s how it is. And the more you keep the ball, the less you have to run probably. That’s the truth. We didn’t have a break… it’s really tough, it’s a tough year, a tough season. I know for some teams it looks like lesser but for us, for the reasons you know, it’s tough. And that is why I said that [about ‘mental fatigue’ after the Brighton game], it was the first time I felt that way actually but after a week with twice travelling to London, playing two intense games, two really good games - I don’t think we ran too much in these games. We ran exactly as much as we had to to win the games and then we came back and faced a Brighton team who had a good idea and we were not ready in that moment, obviously. The boys wanted but couldn’t and if you see that there are two possible reasons: they don’t want, [and] I can say that’s not the case, or they can’t. So, if that’s the case then you have to think about why they couldn’t and that was the thing I was talking about after the game and that’s all. And now we have another four days and things are different and stuff like this. We had twice the short end of the week, two days between the games. That’s really short, with the travel. That’s no excuse, it’s just an explanation and for that game we were not fresh enough, that’s it.
On how he can go about tackling ‘mental fatigue’ among his squad…
Don’t make it bigger than it is. I meant actually… it’s a real problem now because of my English and stuff like this. It’s nothing to do with ‘mental health’ hopefully. When I spoke about it we were not fresh enough, and freshness has two aspects: legs and mind as well. That’s what I wanted to say so there are no issues, or no real issues, or whatever. It just was intense, we looked heavy in moments, the passing was not as hard, as clinical as it should have been. Why should these kind of things happen? The reason is because we were not fresh enough, it’s not mental. I was not happy with using the word but wanted to make sure that it was not only the legs [I spoke about] because there are other things as well. We have to prove that we can get freshness back and we will, but for that moment we didn’t have enough time obviously because everybody could see it then on the pitch.
On how his team can rediscover their ‘magic’ at Anfield…
By playing really good football. Everybody knows it’s Anfield, we love playing there, still we love playing there. It’s a great place, the best place we can imagine, so it’s all good. But we didn’t win the last two games there, I know that. But we were not interested in winning 68 in a row so why should we now make the two games we didn’t win bigger than it is? I don’t think I could sit here when we lost 68 in a row, that would be a real sensation. So, it’s all about trying again, it’s all about being positive, enjoying football, all these kind of things, and make it a fortress again. That’s how it is but it will not happen in a press conference with what I would say here. I’m not half, I’m not 10 per cent, in the mood to speak about anything I would talk to my players [about] because when I am with them I am 100 per cent there. Here, it’s still like paid holiday. I cannot win the game here, I cannot lose the game here, the only thing I have to do is answer questions and that’s what I do. But not about what I am telling my players.