Jürgen Klopp covered a wide range of topics in his press conference leading up to Liverpool's match at Leeds United on April 17th. He spoke about how tough playing against the Snow Leopards on the road would be, how the Reds have nothing to lose over the remaining matches and the different approach he takes in training when multiple days are available to prepare for an opponent.
Leeds play their home matches at Elland Road, a venue they have occupied since the club's founding in 1919. Klopp says coming away with all 3 points from that venerable venue will be a challenge.
“A big fight, a massive fight,” he said. “ So we expect them to be absolutely on their toes, massive fight, proper atmosphere. It will be a tough one but we have to build now again on two games that were good, in moments really good and for different reasons – and especially the second half against Arsenal was obviously really good and we have to build on that. That's what we'll try.”
With only a handful of matches left in the season, Liverpool's fate is seemingly sealed. But that will not stop the Reds from trying to move as far up the Premier League table as possible.
“Yeah, we have nothing to lose really,” Klopp said “We are in a position where we don't want to be in the table, that means we have to act a little bit like this. We have to try new things, we have to fight for things, that's how it is. The things we tried so far this season didn't work out properly and especially not consistently, and that's what we have to do. Especially from the moment when we scored our goal [against Arsenal], we were really in the game and then it was a top performance even, so that's good.”
The Reds have not seen the pitch in 8 days, so Klopp has used the extra time to cover all the bases, something he admits there is no time for when Liverpool plays multiple matches in a week.
“You can go through pretty much everything what is important in football. You can work on defensive stuff, you can work on offensive stuff. You can do finishing, you can even do endurance if you want. You can do everything. In such a long week, you have really time to train. In a short week, you recover most of the time and give the informations all in meetings – that's a massive difference. That's a week where you turn into a coach again and not being just a manager to pick the team and set the tactics up and stuff like this. This is proper coaching. I enjoy it a lot.”
Klopp seemed more relaxed in this press conference. The Reds are playing better and he is under a little less pressure since it is unlikely the club will rise far enough in the table to make the Champions League. As he said now they have nothing to lose. Let's see if that Leeds (pun intended) to better play in this match
