Jürgen Klopp on fighting back, fan support and facing RB Leipzig
Jürgen Klopp today spoke at length about his and the players' approach to producing an improved run of form as quickly as possible.
Liverpool journey to Budapest for the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie with RB Leipzig on Tuesday night, having sustained a third successive Premier League defeat against Leicester City last weekend.
At a pre-match press conference on Monday afternoon, Klopp discussed the test he expects from Julian Nagelsmann’s Leipzig, who are second in the Bundesliga and reached the semi-finals last season.
He also fielded questions on how he is dealing with the challenges currently facing the Reds and the backing he and his team are receiving from afar from supporters.
Read a summary of his chat with the media below…
On how he feels at the moment…
It’s not football the only thing that’s happening; [it might be] for you the only thing that’s happening! But there’s a lot of stuff going around: politics, a lot of private things. Yes, football is the main thing and I’m OK, absolutely OK. We had a training session before, we had a video analysis meeting before – both were really positive. And we are close to flying to Hungary, to Budapest for the first time in my life. So, no, we are absolutely OK and ready to go.
On the mood among the players…
Like you would imagine – so, nobody is ignoring the facts results-wise but my job is now to do, and is what’s really important because we have to keep the good things going – that’s 100 per cent. And if you saw the game against Leicester, if you saw the game against City, these were not two games which you would imagine afterwards we conceded seven and scored two. The games looked, for a majority of the game time, completely different. In our situation in the moment, the things finally go against us because we made individual mistakes. So, yes, we speak about them but that’s how it is with human beings – you make a mistake, not on purpose or whatever, it just happens and how can we avoid them? One time it’s communication and the other time it is just making better offers or all these kind of things. We are always together in these moments, but the performance in the other periods of the game, we have to keep going. We have to play good football to win football games, and that’s what we are working on. The mood of the boys is absolutely OK; we had better moods, you can imagine, but it’s absolutely OK. And we are ready, we are still ready for a real and proper fight.
On the reasons Liverpool have struggled lately…
If you are with us, you see the situation, you follow through all the weeks and months since the season starts – then you can see easily that it’s a summary or mix of different things that happened. It’s now not the time to explain it or whatever, I think you can really see it. Yes, we had not-so-good games and now in the last few games we played absolutely more than [that]. At Manchester United, don’t forget, in the cup – not in the situation we are in and all these kind of things – played there a really good game. Lost it, yes, but performance-wise it was a good performance. Then we played two really good away games. And then we started losing again, but by playing not-bad football. Brighton showed now meanwhile in the period against everybody how good they are and how they play really proper football. Yes, we lost, slightly unlucky, but they were good. The next two games we were really good and were really in the game, we forced ourselves to play confident football. It’s all fine.
In the end, we didn’t get anything because we made individual mistakes. That was not always the case, but now it was about individual mistakes. Before that there were some other reasons and injuries had a big part in it, we cannot ignore that, just because it changed everything. A football team is like building a house – if the foundation is not right then it’s always a little bit shaky and the wind will go through it. I said it before. We cannot change that, but we work with it and on it. That’s what we did all the time. But it’s the Premier League and we are Liverpool and nobody is happy with being fourth and 40 points and only level on points with Everton and all these kind of things. That’s completely fine. I have no problem with that. We have to deal with the situation. We cannot constantly talk about it, we have to sort it. And that’s what we try. I can see that on the pitch, that we work really hard on it. But after the game people talk about the result and [say] ‘they were not good enough in the last two or three weeks’ – we know that but we still have to keep going.
On the banner of support for him placed at Anfield over the weekend and speculation regarding his future…
So, I heard about both. The banner is nice obviously – not necessary, I don’t think. I don’t feel that I need special support in the moment or whatever. But it’s nice, very nice. What was the other thing? That I could leave? That I could get the sack or leave by myself [or take a break]? [Laughs] Neither, nor. I don’t need a break. Look, the last thing I want to do is talk about private things in a press conference, but meanwhile everybody knows – yes, privately, we had an absolutely tougher time but that was not only now for three weeks ago or whatever, that was a much longer time already and we always dealt with it as a family, 100 per cent. And when I came here to the football club, to work, I’m 53, I worked in football for 30 years, as a coach for 20 years, I can split things. I can switch off one thing and the other thing, I don’t carry things around. If I’m private, I’m private. If I’m in football, at the workplace, then I’m here. Of course we are influenced by things that happen around, but nobody has to worry about me or whatever. I am, honestly – I might not look like this because the weather is not cool, I’m white and the beard gets more and more grey, all these kind of things, yes, I don’t sleep a lot, that’s all true and my eyes look [tired], that’s all fine – but I'm full of energy.
Honestly, the situation is a challenge. I don’t want to have the situation but now we are in [it] and now I see it as a challenge, an interesting challenge. I cannot ask a lot of people, nobody wrote a book about how did you come in a situation like that and how did you sort it. But we will sort it. Will we sort it and please everybody while we are doing it? Could be tricky. But sorting it by playing football, sorting it by sticking even more together, sorting it by fighting with all we have, sorting it by learning more than you can learn in each season we played before. Yeah, that’s actually the plan we have.
Strange things happen injury-wise, if somebody comes to me and tells me we have a player with a minor problem I can tell then it’s a centre-half; that’s how it is all the time. It’s unbelievable. Without knowing who it is I would say, ‘OK, centre-half. Who is available in the moment and he has a problem.’ That’s the whole season like this and I don’t know why this happens. How I said, we learned a lot.
But in the moment a lot of people obviously are not happy with the results. I get that. And I am responsible for that, 100 per cent. But we played still some pretty good stuff. You [the media] can forget that, we cannot because that’s the start for changing the things. That you change the situation like we are in with bad football, I never heard about. The result, yes, you need the result but we are Liverpool, we cannot sit back and wait for another team [for] 60 minutes until they come over the halfway line. We have to be dominant, we have to play football and we do that. So, a massive challenge – I’m ready, the boys are ready and we give our absolute everything to sort it.
And thanks for all the support. I don’t read it, I don’t really see it, but people tell me and I’m very, very grateful for these kinds of things. But they can really think about other things because nobody has to worry about me.
On feeling the support from around the world after playing most of the season without fans in the stadium…
Yeah, of course that’s nice. We do this for the people, that will never change. I feel the responsibility so much when the things don’t go well. Really. I don’t want any praise for whatever we are doing. No, it’s all fine. We know we do it for the people. That the majority of our people are still, and maybe even more so, with us is nice to hear, it’s nice to feel, it’s nice. But I would prefer to fight this fight that we are in in the moment with our people in the stadium. Coming into a situation like this, yeah, is not what you wish for. But if you are in [it], you can show real unity and real togetherness. Then if the stadium would be now full for the next 10 games, I would really love to fight together against this. We fight together, obviously, just in different places. Yeah, knowing about the support is great.
On Leipzig coach Nagelsmann and the strengths of the Bundesliga side…
Julian is an extraordinary talent. He’s still young as a coach and he’s already proven virtually everything that you can prove as a manager. He’s talented and he seems young and fresh. But he’s still also very experienced and serious. And he’s got a really varied profile in terms of his teams and the way they play – there’s a lot of variety, a lot of flexibility, he’s always got different ideas, different ways of reacting. He’s got an absolute eye for players, where to play them, how to deal with the players. That’s my impression of him. He’s just an outstanding manager already now and in the future when we are all old he will be even better, I’m sure. When we will have to concentrate on other stuff in our lives, he will still be a major actor in football. This is a promising long career for him as a manager, it’s intensive. We had a chat this week actually and he seemed very relaxed, happy, but also ambitious. Of course we want to beat him tomorrow but I will still definitely keep an eye on his career and I’m absolutely convinced that he will still go places.
On Liverpool’s ambitions in the Champions League…
If you’re in the last 16 of the Champions League, you want to go to the quarter-finals of course – and that’s our plan. It will be difficult, no problem for me. The last 16 means the 16 best teams in Europe and we’re still part of them. And, accordingly, we would like to go for it. What’s cool about football is, no matter what the outcome of the previous match is, you’ve got the same chance for the next match. You have to keep that faith and sometimes you lose faith and need to get faith back. We know how difficult it is against Leipzig; I assume Leipzig know how difficult it is against us. And we’ll just try to make sure that our football, that can still be excellent, wins. It just hasn’t been the results recently and that’s what we’re going to start changing tomorrow night.