Klopp Q&A | Top-four battle, responding, centre-halves, Leeds and more
Jürgen Klopp discussed the Premier League top-four battle, his Liverpool players showing a response and more when previewing the team's trip to Leeds United.
The Reds head to Elland Road on Monday night hoping to secure their fourth successive win in the league and keep up their pursuit of a Champions League qualification spot.
Klopp looked ahead to the encounter with Marcelo Bielsa's side by speaking to reporters via video link from the AXA Training Centre on Saturday.
Read on for a summary of what the boss had to say during his pre-match press conference...
On how the defensive partnership between Ozan Kabak and Nathaniel Phillips is developing…
It's good. How we always said – things have to develop, players have to get used to each other, there was never a question about quality or whatever, the boys have quality but then you have to bring it together and then it works. Especially in defending it is like this and Ozan and Nat do really well, and hopefully it will stay like this. They could play a lot of games [together], four Premier League games and I think four Champions League games as well, probably, so that makes it eight that they played together. That's really good, I can't say anything different and I am really happy for them. Ozan is a 21-year-old boy, came from Germany here [as] a big prospect. He was not lucky with the last two teams he was playing with, one went down and the other will probably go down. Nobody in world football really doubted his quality but coming then and making this big step and winning more games than before, it's really good for him that he can show that. We were convinced but in the end you never know, and he really proved that point.
And Nat Phillips is just an exceptional career so far, with all the things he did in the past and what he thought about and where he was and all these things. Now playing for Liverpool in the Champions League, Premier League, winning games, winning challenges. Probably the best heading statistics in the history of the Premier League I could imagine at least, it is unbelievable what the boy is doing there, and on top of that playing good football. So, it's really nice. Obviously the start, or the restart for one, and the start of a proper career for both – that's really nice.
On whether Leeds' win at Manchester City last time out changes Liverpool's pre-match preparation…
Did you watch the game? Man City played against 10 players of Leeds, so that's not exactly usually the way Leeds plays. It was an early red card, early 1-0 for Leeds, and Leeds played an exceptional game from a passion point of view but from all the other points of view, the tactical stuff and these kind of things, there is not a lot to take from it apart from you see the character of the team. That's obviously exceptional: they never gave up, they fought as hard as they could, they worked their socks off and with 10 men they still had counter-attacks. A lot of teams don't have even counter-attacks against City with 11 men, but they had it with 10 and scored a late winner. So, I saw the game as well and it was really exciting to see what's possible in football, to be honest. I'm pretty sure Leeds were surprised when they had the red card as well, nobody in the Leeds squad probably thought, 'OK, we were halfway through, now we will get the three points.' But in the end they got it and with the passion they showed, they deserved it. That's really nice that something like this is possible, but no, it doesn't change the preparation.
On whether he has had to lift the mood among his players following the Champions League exit and whether he is confident of a positive response…
Look, there are obviously two things in football that are important: one is the performance, the other is results. The last three Premier League games we won, one Champions League game we lost and one we drew. The one bad game we played in that spell was the Champions League game we lost, all the other games were OK or better, so that's what we have to keep doing: play our best football. And still you have to accept then the result because you have to finish the situations off, what we didn't do in the second leg against Real Madrid obviously, but that does not mean we will not do that forever again. That's the situation, just go for it. It's not only about having a 'response' or whatever, it's 'Just go for it, go and go and go, play your best football'.
When you think about Leeds, it's like 'It's uncomfortable, you have to go and do this and this and this' – exactly the same thing Leeds has to do when they think about us, 'Oh my God, how do we defend that?' We cannot do more actually, before a game. In a game you have to cause a team more problems than they cause you and you have to use the situations you create more often than they do. That's exactly the situation you are in. Yes, we are under pressure, how everyone can imagine, in the sense that we want to finish in the top four but we don't know in the moment if we will. But we have seven games to prove that point and that's what we try.
On whether he feels his side have found a bit of momentum in the Premier League that they can use in the final seven games...
It would be cool, it would be absolutely cool. But the thing is we should not forget the opponent we always face. But now it's the situation, we won the last three games, that's why we are still in the fight for the Champions League spots. If we would have won only one and drew two, it could look completely different. If we would have lost all three, we don't have to talk and all this kind of thing. So, the way is clear – we have to win football games. The best way would be win all the football games but there are tough opponents and we respect that, we really respect that. We see the situation we are in and we see it positively, to be honest. We are around, we have to win our games to put pressure on the other teams and stuff like this. That's all what we know and that's what we try, but nothing else really. If we have the momentum, we will see on Monday night. It's a completely different game. Leeds in the moment is probably the most different game in the league, if you want. If you compare a few teams with each other, some play this, some play that and so on. But Leeds is really special and for that we have to be ready.
On Leeds' improved defensive showings recently...
They were never really that vulnerable, like sometimes when you defend slightly higher and the man-marking thing then you can get tracked out and stuff like this. That all happened probably and it's still not the most experienced team in the world. They have an experienced manager but for the team it's the first year for most of them playing in the Premier League. So all these things, it's completely normal that you have to go through such processes and they did it now. But again, against City they could've conceded – because of the 10 men – seven, eight, nine. On other days, City would've scored them but they didn't and they defended it really, really well because they jumped in each shot, blocked each ball – it was exceptional. But in general, [I] just say Leeds is a really good side managed by one of the best. That obviously helps – it's a really good combination.
On Leeds striker Patrick Bamford...
Top player. I'm pretty sure before the season I heard on talkSPORT that people said, 'Yeah, Leeds needs a proper goalscorer. Bamford is not good enough' and stuff like this. And I'm so happy that he could prove them all wrong. He's an exceptional player. The work-rate is outstanding, and still playing the football he plays on top of that and scoring goals. That's rare. They have a lot of interesting players but Bamford, I'm really happy for him. I don't know him obviously but it's a nice career, a little bit later than others, but still very impressive.