Press conference: The boss on Anfield Road, Brighton and more
Jürgen Klopp has explained the difficulty of the challenge he expects Liverpool to face against Brighton and Hove Albion this weekend.
The Reds boss held his pre-match press conference on Friday, providing his reaction to the confirmation of Fabinho’s ankle ligament damage and his message to the Hillsborough families.
For Klopp’s thoughts on Saturday’s return to Premier League action and the latest announcement on the proposed Anfield Road expansion plans, read on…
On the prospect of an expanded Anfield Road Stand…
Yes, it’s really early stages so I don’t even know exactly what I’m allowed to say, or what I can say. I saw pictures of it obviously and it looks really good, that’s nice. But it’s very early stages. The best news of that is – nobody knows if it will happen or when it will happen exactly – but obviously the club is constantly trying to develop and make the next steps. That’s what I like about the news. Making this iconic place available for more people is a very good idea – it could have been mine, it’s not but it could have been. It’s exciting but nobody knows exactly how long it will take or whatever, but the plans are in our mind and that’s a good start.
On spreading goals throughout the team…
We always discuss different things, it’s not too long ago that we spoke about relying so much on our front three. Now we speak about that! I couldn’t care less who scores, to be honest. In the end I’m really happy when the ball is in the back of the net. Of course it’s good, but I still think we could have scored more goals, to be honest. That’s the truth as well. So, yes, it makes us a bit more unpredictable for sure, but it’s nothing I really think about.
On facing Brighton…
We play Brighton with a very, very exciting development, when you see them playing now – how they play, the way they play, the possession they have; I think they are seventh or so for possession in the league. Against City they had 48 [per cent] or so, they play proper football. They really have their own plan and I respect that a lot. Graham is doing a really good job there. It’s just a tough one. After that game pretty much everybody has three games a week coming up now with different cup competitions. But Brighton had a full week to prepare and they are innovative, they think a lot about football obviously, and so they will come here and try to get the points. I’m 100 per cent sure, no doubt about that. And we have to be ready, three days after a very intense game against Napoli.
On maintaining Liverpool’s intensity in every game…
If you look at the numbers, we are not the most intense team in the league. There are teams that run more than us; OK, in the high-intense runs, in the sprints, we are pretty high in the stats. But Brighton, for example, run much more overall in a game than we do. It’s not always the same. There are games where we have to be very, very intense and we played a couple of them in the last few weeks. Other teams, we have to control the game more and all these things. The most important thing, which is probably our biggest strength in the moment, is we don’t feel these kind of things, the numbers – we don’t feel the 12 games we won, or the 13 games with the points, or the two-and-a-half years [without a league defeat at Anfield]. We are always in this kind of mood that we have to be really at 100 per cent for the next opponent. This 100 per cent differs of course over a season but the 100 per cent available has to be always there.
Other teams have difficult situations as well, sometimes we face them then exactly in that moment and it’s maybe not the best football you can play in your life but it must be still good enough to win a football game. In this moment there’s no reason to think about that, we want to play the best football we can play and that’s usually pretty good. And we have to against Brighton as well because they are not only brave, good football-playing, they are well organised on top. Leicester last week, it took a while until they scored a goal. In all the games, they were really there, they were in the game. That’s our job to do, not to think about intensity or whatever. Life should always be like this: if you get up in the morning and it’s your best day then do your best, if it’s your second-best day then do your second best.