Press conferenceJürgen Klopp: Everything is in front of us - attack it, chase it, go for it
Jürgen Klopp covered topics including Liverpool’s trip to Arsenal, the ongoing Premier League title race, his squad’s mentality and more during his pre-match press conference.
The boss spoke to journalists at the AXA Training Centre on Tuesday ahead of his team’s trip to Emirates Stadium to face Mikel Arteta’s Gunners on Wednesday evening in league action.
Read on for a summary of what was discussed…
On Manchester City’s draw with Crystal Palace on Monday night…
I watched for exactly 65 minutes for analyse reasons, believe it or not. Just to have a look at what they [Man City] are doing. I don't have very often time to watch games in real time, so when they are really happening, I like to watch it back and stuff like this. Crystal Palace did really well but City did well as well, [they] just didn't finish the situations off and the last 30 minutes or whatever I didn't watch it. I got some points, saw the result and was surprised.
On whether the Man City result changes the squad mood ahead of Arsenal...
Why should it? It would impact the mood if we would be in our minds in this competition with City and things – 'we have them here, we have them there' or stuff like this. But the fact is we play Arsenal and we are still four points behind. I don't know how you can count points away at Arsenal just now already and think, 'It's only one point.' I think it's easy for you, but it is four points and we have to play this game. As we all know, if we want to reach something in this Premier League and you are not top of the table, sometimes you need the other teams to drop points. I'm not sure now it was already necessary or not, we will see. It all depends on our results still. That's why we think about them and not the others.
Inside Training: Great goals and head tennis ahead of Arsenal
On only conceding twice during eight successive wins helping create defensive solidity...
It's the basis for everything. Whatever you want to achieve in football or in life is based on defensive discipline [and] on the attitude of the team puts in, because you can only win whatever if you're consistent. If you want to be consistent, you have to defend with all you have and everybody has to be involved in all that otherwise it's not possible. So, I consider myself as a positive person but with our football games I'm quite critical, to be honest. I think we could've done here better, here better or here better. It's true we can do better everywhere but when someone tells me we have conceded two in the last eight, or whatever, then I think immediately what was the mistake when we conceded these two goals. It's still possible and I know how good Arsenal is in the moment and we shouldn't think about the defensive record we had.
We should think about the defensive record for this game, and to defend them we have to be in a really good moment because they won a lot of games, I'm not sure, five at least, if not more. They are much more rested than we are, obviously. We are in a very intense period, I heard now we played since we met last time 12 games and they played six. We feel all these games, that's how it is. We try to fix it with making changes but all the players had rest and stuff like this. It's a tough one tomorrow night but we are still looking forward to it. I'm really looking forward to it. Mikel is doing an incredible job there, you can really see week by week, month by month the development they are doing together. It's really impressive. We have to be ready but I sense we will be ready.
On trying to push Man City all the way in the title race…
That's the plan, that's the plan of course: that we keep being as annoying as possible. But how I said, we have to win our football games but that doesn't help when I say it here. You know it anyway [so] why should we say ‘that’s now not our cup of tea’? No, of course we are very ambitious and very determined to do great stuff, but we respect a lot how good they are [and] we respect even more how good the other teams are we face on the way there. I have now not all 10 games we have to play [in mind] but there are a few really tough ones. Each Premier League game is tough but a few are especially tough. One of them we play tomorrow night and sitting here and I say ‘we win 10 games’ – it doesn't sound very likely but as long as it is possible we will give it a proper try, I can tell you.
Bitesize highlights: Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal
On whether there is anything else the players can give after eight straight Premier League wins…
It's final after final after final after final after final what we play, pretty much. That’s how it is, that’s the situation. So, what kind of different situation could there be out there? That we are 10 points ahead or whatever? Then with 10 games to go everyone tells you, ‘It’s [done] already, when will the celebrations be?’ It’s really uncomfortable, not that it happened often in my life, to sit in that situation. So now everything is in front of us: attack it, chase it, go for it.
That's what we do but we know the only chance we have… again, it's great to be in a quarter-final but if you stick in the quarter-final it means you lost a quarter-final, and who wants to do that? The only success is we go to the semi-final, then when you are in the semi-final you want to go to the final, a great achievement and the last game of the season or whenever the FA Cup will be; you lose it and everything was… that's our life but we want to go in this direction. We want to be in and around the most decisive moments and that's intense but that’s not a surprise and not the first time for us. We really enjoy it a lot, but on the other side it is intense as well as it's not an easy holiday trip… this is obviously slightly different.