Q&A: Jürgen Klopp on new season, Norwich, transfers, Elliott and more
Jürgen Klopp addressed a number of topics when he spoke at his pre-Norwich City press conference on Friday morning.
The Liverpool manager fielded questions from journalists ahead of his side's first fixture of the new Premier League season as they head to Carrow Road on Saturday afternoon.
Read on for a summary of the boss' media briefing at the AXA Training Centre...
On the new season and playing in front of fans...
We got a little sense of obviously how it is with fans again last Sunday and Monday, so it was absolutely great and changed the whole game. The little difference is now that we obviously play at Norwich and not at Anfield, and they will be exactly as our people were before they went back to Anfield. We are well ready for a proper fight, that's what we are preparing for all the time now because the competition starts and the pre-season friendlies are over. It was nice to try a few things, to test here and there, but now all of the other stuff is there again, we play for points, we play for our supporters obviously, for fulfilling expectations, dreams, whatever. That is the difference. But we had the longest pre-season for a while, especially the longest pre-season with a big, big squad together. A lot of players were involved in the full pre-season, some came back at least early enough, some came back a little bit later, but now they are all here and it's a good situation. That's what you want at the end of the pre-season – that you have a few choices to make and then to start the season with the first game. We know the intensity will be now completely different and we think in the moment we are ready for it but we have to prove that on Saturday.
On whether he's expecting the fight for the Premier League title to be even more intense...
Is that possible? Last year obviously [with] City the gap was pretty big. The year before with us, the gap was pretty big. I'm not sure if it can get even more intense for all the rest, so we will see. Yeah, Chelsea are not hiding their ambitions and Man United isn't, City isn't. We don't want to hide our expectations or ambitions because we want to fight for everything. But whatever will happen in this season, we don't know now but in this moment it will be a massive fight. I mention only these four but it will not be only these four. It looks like Leicester made really good business again, Arsenal is trying, Tottenham is obviously trying really hard, West Ham played their best season for a long time last year [and] they didn't get worse over the summer. So, it will be very, very interesting. Let's see how it starts and then we can talk about that and then let's make the next step.
On being as excited as supporters for the new season...
Definitely. We were waiting exactly for the same amount of time. We had five weeks pre-season training, which is absolutely great and I loved that. It's the best part of the season actually because you again work on all the things you want to see later in the season – and it was good. But unfortunately I'm pretty sure that the pre-season of Norwich and all the other teams was not bad as well, so they will be really good prepared as well. That's good. The most important thing is that you are ready for the competition and this completely different intensity to pre-season games obviously, which we have now again with the Premier League. Missing a chance in a pre-season friendly is not a problem, it's always easy to explain, 'We had a hard session yesterday' and stuff like this. Now we should be rested.
I don't expect 100 per cent, I expect the available 100 per cent tomorrow. That means I want us to develop during the season to reach a specific point, our absolute peak and keep that then going for the full season. But I expect the available 100 per cent for tomorrow – and that's a lot. That's what we have to show. Then we have to be ready for all these pressure situations, that you score or they score and you have to react and all these kind of stuff. That's something you can talk about in pre-season, which we did, but then there's still a difference between the reality and what we are talking about before. So, how do we react in stress situations? That's all interesting and I'm really excited about that starting now again because we all want to play proper competitive games. Pre-season is important but we all prepare only for the league. The league starts now and it's very exciting.
On rivals' summer transfer business...
February 2020 when the pandemic started and nobody knew how long it will be, I was hoping obviously that it's over in a month and two months, whatever. Now we know so much more about it and it's still a difficult time – it was for everybody, it was for football clubs as well for different reasons. That's probably the reason why you ask me if I'm surprised – no, because these clubs don't depend on this kind of things, I think. We all know the situation of Chelsea and we all know the situation of City and we all know the situation of PSG, for example. What United is doing, I don't know exactly how they do it. But we have obviously our way to do it and that was always the same. Since I'm in, it was always the same. We can spend and we are allowed to spend the money we earn, that's what we always did. This year, we spend already before we earned money with Ibou Konate because, after last season, it was obviously clear we cannot take any risk in this position at all and that's it. That's our situation and it's not about me being surprised. I'm never surprised about the financial power of Chelsea or City or United. I'm long enough in the country to know that they always find a solution to do these kind of things.
For us, it's our way. We keep the team together, that's an important part of business as well. I know it's not as exciting as it is with signing new players for the outside world but it looks like the summer is always the same. People think if you don't sign, you don't work. That's not the case. We are constantly thinking about the past – the past not so much – the present and the future. So, short term and long term – what do we have to do, what can we do, how [does] the team have to look this year, how will it look next year? That's the situation. Maybe not the most exciting but if you are a real Liverpool fan, you are really happy about the news the club delivered in the last few weeks. So, signing Alisson Becker until I don't know when, same with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Virgil obviously very recently and others will follow, so that's great, that's absolutely great news. But it's just not as spectacular out there obviously, seeing as it was. But if other teams wanted to sign these players, they would have to pay a lot of money and we have them already, so that's good. Now we have a really good squad together, we should be in a better situation than we were last year, so let's try to build on what we achieved last year and let's see where we will end up.
On whether a good start to the season is important...
A good start is important but we wouldn't stop if we couldn't start well. That's the case. I love to win the first game but I think it would be disrespectful to talk about these kind of things before we face Norwich even. We have to go there, we will do that this afternoon, have a nice sleep overnight, play there tomorrow afternoon and I know how good they are and I know how great the job Daniel Farke is doing there. For a club like Norwich, it's incredible trust in him, a new four-year contract which is absolutely great, so they believe there in his work and the project and you can see that. They lost good players – or one at least, what I know about – but they did sensational business. Billy Gilmour is obviously one of the biggest Scottish talents for the last 50 years, bringing him in on loan. Then Rashica I know from the Bundesliga, Sargent I know from the Bundesliga, so two really good, exciting strikers, offensive players. Lost Buendia, yes, but the replacements they found now, the little Greek boy who came in last week, so good business. It's exciting what they are doing and we have to be absolutely spot on to have a good start. If we had a good start, then we can talk about that.
On whether Harvey Elliott has made himself part of the first-team squad for this season...
That's the plan, that's the plan. He showed up in an exceptional way. He was not the only one but, of course, Harvey is only 18. So it might be really exceptional, the only problem Harvey has is we don't treat him like an 18-year-old boy! At least not in training sessions or on the pitch because his football is pretty mature in a lot of moments. Off the pitch, he's much more a kid than on the pitch. So that's really exciting, we are happy about that. Like all our midfielders, they are all different and bring different dimensions into the game, which is good. His overview is great, dribbling top, passing range really good and a lot of things. So it's really interesting. He played a top pre-season but so did Kaide Gordon, he's only 16. That's the situation: if you don't have these spaces in the squad, you block these boys and we have to keep these spaces open for these exceptional talents. That's what we try. It's not always possible and it doesn't mean it will happen next week, next month, next year. It's just we need to show that we are a club who gives opportunity to these kind of boys and these kinds of talents. That's what we want to show. That's why it was a really good pre-season so far for him and let's see how we can use that.
On 'replacing' Georginio Wijnaldum in the squad...
He was, absolutely [an important part]. He was the most consistently available player, at least. I think you don't have to hide the relationship I had with Gini and how much I loved his way of play, how reliable he was as a player and all this kind of stuff. But he's not here anymore. We have now so far Henderson and Thiago not really being involved in the pre-season, maybe a few days now, let me say nearly a week. We played quite a few games with Milner, Naby Keita and Harvey. We have another midfield which played now the second game, I think – that was Oxlade, Fabinho, Curtis Jones. Curtis is another player who can and will make the next step and he's an exceptional talent. I for sure forgot somebody, which would not be nice, but this is only the numbers and different profiles of players and stuff like this. I don't know which midfielder it is then who scores more goals from that position than the boys with us. We never said we don't have to improve, we have to improve but to score more goals from midfield positions you create the situations for that. The midfielder has to play for us in the way we play. It's not that easy that he's constantly in goalscoring situations, so they have to do different jobs. We have a specific set-up of our team. You see where our full-backs are usually in attacking moments, you see who is in the box, who's there. We could have scored more goals, definitely yes, but it's not about a different player for that. It's about different positioning in that situation and our boys can do that as well.
I'm in my sixth year here and I think pretty much apart from the year when we signed Ali and Virg, it was always the same, it looks always we don't sign enough, we don't do enough and this kind of stuff. We were constantly on improving the team, and one part of it is signing new players. The most important thing – I actually think our fans appreciate that as well – is having a group together who is fun to watch, who is exciting to watch, who is fighting together, who is definitely 100 per cent committed to the club and to the values of the club and all this kind of stuff. We have that. So, let's fight with all we have and whatever happens until the end of the pre-season we will see. But we cannot just add on players to this squad and say, 'Now, let's have a look how that works' because you have to deal with the squad the whole year. If somebody wants to leave or leaves or stuff like this, then we have to think, 'Do we have to replace it or not?' With Gini, it's like that. That we [have], if you want, two players who are not new but can make the next step with Harvey and Curtis. And Naby can make the next step with a full pre-season, an exceptional pre-season, so he can make the next step. We cannot just ignore that and he's an outstanding player who everybody wants to sign probably.
That's our situation. I said it before, we cannot compare to the other clubs. They obviously don't have any limits. We have limits but we were quite successful, even with having limits in the last few years and that's what we should try again and not using it as an excuse. [If] we will not win a game, we say then it was because we didn't sign him or him – that will not be the case. Want to use our sources and that's passion, a good way, desire, clear plan, direction, flexibility, all this kind of stuff. That's our football, that's what we want to use and then let's see which is the right way. We cannot spend money we don't have. Maybe others can but we can't. That's it, that's my information.