Klopp on Fabinho's role, Van Dijk's return and midfield options
Jürgen Klopp discussed the importance of Fabinho's versatility, the return of Virgil van Dijk to face Manchester United, and the increased options he has to choose from during his pre-match press conference on Friday.
Read the manager’s thoughts on those three topics below…
On whether Fabinho has a long-term future at centre-back…
It’s brilliant to have him as an option for both positions, but his natural position is in midfield. That he can play centre-half makes him an unbelievably valuable player for us. We knew last year we’d lose Emre Can, who is a similar profile. It was so important, it was always the plan that we’d have [Fabinho] for that as well. With four centre-halves, we didn’t think we’d have to use him there actually. But he can play the position obviously, that’s really good and helps us a lot. We will see what happens in the future but he is a midfielder and we will use him most of the time in that position.
On the importance of having Van Dijk available after suspension against Bayern Munich…
[It’s] very [important], like he always is. But the most important thing is that we didn’t miss him as much as, again, a lot of people expected us to miss him – because we defend as a unit. It makes life a bit easier for Virg and for Fabinho as well. In front of him Hendo played an outstanding game; if he would not have been as spot-on as he was then Fabinho would have struggled, and Virg would have struggled in the last couple of games. It’s really good to have him back, of course. It’s the first time for I don’t know how many weeks that we have to make a choice between midfielders, full-backs, even centre-half if I think about Fabinho again in that position. I could make a decision about it. That’s good. For us, it’s a good moment. So far this week because of the Bayern game, it was only more or less recovery but now we have two sessions to prepare the game. That’s good and it’s different for us. I’m really looking forward to it.
On his selection options in midfield…
It’s not difficult. The thing is, we always had a good line-up to start, our problem was how could we change? That’s the problem. Maybe one or two players who are not 18 years old will not be in the squad, I don’t know in the moment but that could happen. That’s all good, we need to have influence from the bench, that we can change and bring on players who are fit. Not like Shaq against Bayern, having one session before that but because of other things, we thought if we needed him for 10 or 15 minutes we could bring him at least. Now he is another five or six days in training, which always helps. That’s what you need in a very decisive period of the season. We created a basis we have to use now, and for using the situation you need the right number of players because we have three games in a week. I don’t think about the other two games but I know they will come. Hopefully it stays like this, that we can make changes in the game, in the line-ups and all that stuff. That’s what you need. Hopefully it stays like this, it’s the best moment for a couple of weeks.