Ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup match with Wolverhampton, Jurgen Klopp provided more information about Virgil van Dijk’s injury, expressed his admiration for Cody Gakpo and much more.
Here are the key moments of the manager’s press conference before the Wolves…
“More than a month” without Van Dijk
Earlier this week it was reported that Van Dijk was forced to spend some time out of the game due to a hamstring injury.
Klopp confirmed the stories and said the club would likely be without the Dutchman for “more than a month.” The last thing Liverpool need.
“In the end, the diagnosis was quite severe: weeks, more than a month,” he said.
“We are talking about weeks, more than a month.
“It’s a hamstring. We didn’t do anything else. At that moment it was one sprint too many.”
Gakpo “nice to watch”
Kodi Gakpo is expected to make his Liverpool debut on Saturday, after the formalities of his transfer from PSV were completed earlier this week.
Klopp says that during a difficult period for Liverpool, he liked to watch Gakpo during the first two days of training with the club.
“Cody has had two full training days and, to be honest, he’s a pleasure to watch,” he added.
“In our situation, it’s very nice to have a player who is quite natural in a lot of things and knows where the goal is, it’s useful.”
“It’s good in small rooms. Likes to hit from afar, a good finisher and dribbler.”
They advocate the rejection of replays of the FA Cup
In the last two seasons, the FA has refused to repeat in the third and fourth rounds to avoid further accumulation of matches, but this year everything has returned to normal.
If Saturday’s match ends inconclusively, a replay will be played at Molineux in the coming weeks.
“Yes, I have always been,” Klopp said when asked if he would be in favour of replays being permanently excluded from the competition.
“There has to be another solution,” he added when asked about smaller clubs getting more money from replays.
“We can’t solve all the problems by playing more games.”
Henderson’s return and team selection
Klopp seems to have suggested Jordan Henderson will be the only player ready to return from injury this weekend.
The Liverpool captain missed the loss to Brentford due to concussion, but has been able to train in recent days.
This will mean that Roberto Firmino and James Milner will remain on the sidelines, and Nabi Keita also did not participate in Thursday’s session at the AXA training center.
Klopp also said he would name a strong team at Anfield on Saturday.
“It was always clear that we would line up as strong and experienced as we could,” he said when Liverpool played one game a week during January while things were like this.
“There will be no rotation from Monday to Saturday because of competition or something else.”
“This is a general problem, not a midfield problem”
Many believe that Liverpool’s recent problems are due to a lack of quality in midfield, but Klopp does not agree with this, at least publicly!
“This is a general problem, not a midfield problem,” he said.
“The defense starts in front, if we don’t do that, the midfield won’t have a chance.
“The way we want to defend is clear. In most cases it works, but not always.”
