00:00I am, you too?
00:07Yeah, I went out during half-time, so it's mostly not a good sign,
00:19and it wasn't because he will not be available for the game tomorrow.
00:23The rest, we have to wait and see how long it's going to take.
00:27I'm not expecting months, of course, but let's see if he's available for PSV or Bournemouth.
00:36Jürgen Mbappé also told us in the week that he's playing through pain at the moment,
00:40with his name not fully recovered from it.
00:43What concerns do you have over that, how you're managing that day-to-day?
00:47I think you've seen how we try to manage that.
00:50We skipped him twice, didn't we?
00:54At least in this game Jorel played, and he didn't play well in the Akron Standing Game.
01:02That is a bit maybe because he still has some pain of his knee,
01:08don't exaggerate it, but he probably feels a bit.
01:13But it's safe for him to play, but it's more the loads where you're aware of
01:18if a player is out for five or six weeks and then play him every three days,
01:21that's, in our opinion, a certain risk, so we always try to manage that.
01:26I think he now comes to a moment where he would be able to play three times a week.
01:31Ipswich was your first game in charge,
01:33I think back then there wasn't the expectation that you were going to win the Premier League,
01:38I think certainly outside the club there seems to be the expectation now
01:41that Liverpool are going to win the Premier League this season,
01:44so what difference do you see in your side now compared to that first game against Ipswich?
01:51No, not a lot, but the fact was that I only worked with 13 to 14 players
01:58for one and a half weeks back then,
02:00so there's not being said about sometimes how difficult it is to come in the middle of a season
02:05and try to work with a new team with the schedule we are having.
02:10But to be fair, it maybe felt a bit the same for me,
02:15because 12, 13, 14 players came in one and a half weeks before the start of the season,
02:20and from that moment on we only played games,
02:22so it's normal I think that we've improved compared to that game.
02:29Although especially the second-half performance was something
02:34that was quite similar to the performances I see currently.
02:39With that in mind, how much do you think Ipswich will be a different proposition
02:44now that we've gotten used to lighting this league a little bit
02:47and taking some big points off some top teams?
02:49Yeah, they've done, and they've been a bit unlucky sometimes in the last moments of games.
02:54I think I've said this a few times recently,
02:57that the second-half of the season is always more difficult than the first-half,
03:00because some teams strengthen themselves during the winter break,
03:04some teams, of all the teams, not all of them,
03:08but many teams work with their manager for half a season,
03:11and that normally leads to a team becoming better.
03:16And that's definitely the situation also for Ipswich,
03:19although they've made it really difficult for us already in the first game of the season.
03:23But I think it's fair to say that they've improved during the first half of the year,
03:29and that is also a compliment to Kieran McKenna.
03:34He already made it really difficult for us in the first game,
03:39but I think the few games afterwards were more difficult for them.
03:43But then at a certain point they've become a very good team
03:47that makes it difficult for every team,
03:49except maybe their last game, which was an exception to the rule.
03:54And maybe that was because City was City again.
03:58A word that keeps getting repeated again and again in comments about your performances,
04:04particularly in the one against Lille, was professional.
04:07Is that a word you like to hear when people talk about you?
04:11Is that something you like to judge yourself on?
04:14It's better than that they call us amateurs!
04:16LAUGHTER
04:19Yeah, I think you guys, not until now, it hasn't been asked yet,
04:24but the amount of questions I get about Mo and how would you describe him,
04:28so it's every time you have to find a new word or say something new again,
04:33or try to come up with something new.
04:34That's a bit similar to what we are doing.
04:38Because we're doing so well, many people talk about us
04:41and it's difficult to every time come up with something new.
04:44Now, it's been exciting probably, all kinds of words have been used,
04:48and at the moment, if I listen to you, the word professional is there.
04:53I don't exactly know what that might mean then,
04:56does this mean that we are controlling the game?
04:59Do we end up being very business-like, you don't know where it's going to end up?
05:05OK, yeah, I don't know if it's meant positive or negative.
05:08What I see is that we've got a lot of ball possession,
05:10that we dominate and control every single game.
05:12In every single game we've got more chances than the other team.
05:16In every game we deserve to win, or if we don't win we would have deserved it.
05:22Except for one game maybe, and I've said it many times,
05:24that was the Chelsea game, where maybe a draw would have been more fair.
05:30But in every other game we've played, I think we were the dominant team,
05:34not because we go into a low block and kick every ball forward,
05:38because of a certain style.
05:40Yeah, it's up to anyone how you would describe that style.
05:44Professional, yeah, OK.
05:49Yeah, that's a good thing then.
05:52Given Harvey Elliott has said this is his club he wants to stay in,
05:57his recent performances, how close is he to starting, and what does he hope to do?
06:03Keep bringing performances in like he did,
06:05and keep working as hard on the training ground as he's doing as well.
06:10I always say to the players, it's not only about you,
06:12it's also about the competition you are in.
06:16And in his situation, he's in competition
06:18with five very good midfielders that you know,
06:22and there are a few youngsters coming through that are very talented as well,
06:26but they are not close to playing time yet.
06:29But he's in competition with Wata, with Ryan, with Curtis, with Maka,
06:38and himself, so these are the midfielders we have at the moment.
06:42So he has to bring up performances like he does,
06:44and then playing time will probably increase, it increases more, yeah, it will increase.
07:02I think he's already very good.
07:06So it's a centre-back that without him even touching the ball,
07:13you already feel quite impressive, because he's so strong and tall.
07:19And I think one of the things he could improve, in my opinion at least,
07:25is his play with the ball, bringing the ball out from the back.
07:30I would not say he was poor in that, but he could improve,
07:33he could go to another level, and I think he works really hard to improve that,
07:37and I already see this improvement.
07:39Defensively, he's of the highest standard.
07:44I think he's fast, he's strong, he wins duels through the air, over the ground,
07:49he can cover for his teammates as well if needed,
07:53he can play 1v1 with a lot of space in his back,
07:56so defensively there's not a lot he could or can improve.
08:01But bringing the ball out from the back, which is not his single job,
08:05it's also his teammates that he needs for that.
08:10It's something we've worked on a lot and we still keep on working on a lot,
08:13not only with him but with the others as well.
08:16Because from all the ball possession we have,
08:18we would like to create even more chances than we are doing now.
08:22And that starts from bringing the ball out from the back.
08:25Karl?
08:27Hi. Andy Robertson has been the first-choice at the back for a long time,
08:31there's been a lot of rotation in that position this season,
08:36is that managing workload or is it something that Kostas' level is starting to improve?
08:44I think both. If Kostas was on a completely different level than Robbo,
08:51then it would not be smart to rotate in that position or manage the load,
08:56because then you drop so far in quality that could be a risk.
09:00But I don't know what Kostas' situation was last season,
09:04I know that he didn't play a lot but I don't know where he was at which level.
09:08But from the moment I came in, in our tour in the United States, he did really well.
09:13So he's proved that he can play in the full-back position as well.
09:19And since we've got now two good options, in my opinion,
09:22you can indeed see that we are managing loads and rotate in that position quite a bit.
09:28Yes, that's true.
09:30Hi, Armin. When Ipswich went to the Emirates earlier this season,
09:34Arsenal ended up with an 84 per cent possession in the first half.
09:37You've spoken just now about the idea of wanting to turn more possession into chances.
09:42When a team is so happy to surrender the ball,
09:44what's the key to doing that and putting them under pressure without having attempts on goal?
09:49Yeah, that's not always easy.
09:52My former club Feyenoord played during the week against Bayern Munich,
09:55and no-one would have expected that result.
09:58But it also shows you, I think Bayern had 80 per cent ball possession,
10:03how difficult it is against a low-block,
10:06if a low-block works that hard, as Feyenoord did, and Ipswich did as well,
10:11to create chance after chance after chance.
10:14I think you also see this back in the days when my assistant John Huytinga
10:20played for the Dutch national team, when they then played Gibraltar,
10:23not to compare Feyenoord or Ipswich with Gibraltar,
10:26but even lower level like Gibraltar, if they went to a low-block it was 10-0.
10:30But if these teams do it now, it ends up being 4-0, 3-0,
10:35so you don't see these results with such a big margin,
10:39with the exception of City last week.
10:42But I don't think Ipswich went to a low-block constantly in that game.
10:48So it shows you how difficult it is if players are well-trained, well-managed,
10:53and play with a lot of intensity and willingness not to concede,
10:58how difficult it is to score goals against any team in the world,
11:02let alone against a Premier League team.
11:05I think we faced this against United, we faced this against Forest,
11:10we faced it a bit against Brentford as well, these low-blocks.
11:17So, yeah, it's difficult for every single team everywhere in Europe.
11:22So do you think this might be a game where the team and fans have to be a bit more patient?
11:29You mentioned the game against Man City, where obviously it was a big score,
11:33do you think there's a little danger that some people might come into it thinking,
11:36well, that's going to be the same again?
11:38No, that is difficult for fans, and my father is a fan as well,
11:43and when I call him after the game he can also say,
11:45oh, it wasn't as exciting as other games of Liverpool when he watched the game against Lille.
11:51And then I have to try to explain to him that these games you can easily lose
11:58if you're starting to force all kinds of difficult balls.
12:02But he's not always agreeing with me, Dan!
12:06LAUGHTER
12:10But as a manager I was quite happy with our performance against Lille,
12:14because they were a team that are so well-organised and so much control,
12:18and I think there was one moment in the game I can remember
12:21that Curtis tried to play at the halfway line a bit of a ball that wasn't a bit of a risk,
12:27and we lost that ball and they counter-attacked us.
12:31So that's the risk you have if you play against a low-block team.
12:34Forrest is probably the best in the league if you play these stupid balls,
12:39which I call stupid balls, which my father would love to see us playing a bit more.
12:43That is the risk of them creating much more chances,
12:50and there's a difficult balance between taking the risk and conceding a lot,
12:54or having control, maybe not create as much,
12:58but against this team going 1-0 down, like we've seen against Forrest,
13:03is even a bigger problem than if you are especially against a low-block.
13:11So it's a balance we have to find, and I can understand it's sometimes difficult for fans as well
13:16that come to the stadium to see us winning,
13:20but hopefully us scoring a lot of goals in an exciting match.
13:24But, yeah, you need two teams for that, and the better we do,
13:28the less likely it is that teams come to Anfield and say,
13:30OK, let's go to a high press and let's press them all over the pitch.
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