On if he feels pressure about this match…
Of course I feel pressure, we all feel pressure, because we are in an industry where every single day you’re in this industry there’s pressure. We’re working at a beautiful club with a great, great history and we feel this. We can achieve the quarter-finals of the Champions League, so, yeah, that comes with pressure. But it’s also nice to have that pressure because we could have also been out or playing at a lower level or not even be in. So we embrace this pressure and we’re looking forward to playing Galatasaray tomorrow.
On not managing to score against Galatasaray in the previous two games this season and whether Davinson Sanchez’s suspension is ‘an advantage’…
You are right, we haven’t scored against them. We did, but that was disallowed by VAR [and] we thought we had a penalty [but] that was disallowed by VAR. We had our chances, [but] as so many times this season we weren’t able to convert them. That is not only because of us – it’s also because of Galatasaray. They throw themselves in front of every ball, they have a great fighting spirit in the team, which you usually see with teams that are top of the league and doing very good in Europe, so there’s a great energy in their team. That, combined with the support of the fans they had, led to the fact they could twice keep a clean sheet because they have a great mentality, because they have good players [and] good defenders as well.
They miss out one [tomorrow] with Sanchez, but this weekend they played with someone else centrally, Sanchez played as well, and they kept a clean sheet. The good thing about Galatasaray and about us is we don’t rely on 11 players, you have more than 11 good players available. That’s what they have, that’s what we have. We need to score a goal, that’s what we know, and that that’s not easy. That’s also what we know after facing them twice but we will fight for it, we will go for it to score a goal tomorrow and hopefully more than one.
On a suggestion Liverpool are ‘individuals and not a team’…
Then I should have seen it and I haven’t, so I should have seen why [Jamie Carragher] said it. Did he have examples of that as well? I agree with a lot of things Jamie has said throughout this whole season. This particular one, I disagree with him, I don’t see this. As I said, after we conceded the 1-1 [against Tottenham], after so many disappointments we had this season, it would not have been completely strange or weird if the players would have given up, but they didn’t.
I can show you – and you can find it yourself as well – they had a counter-attack where seven or eight of our players were back in our 18-yard box, which led to their corner because we blocked that shot, which then led to a transition moment all the way to the other side where Hugo Ekitike had his big chance. A team that has given up, a team of individuals, a team that doesn’t work together, doesn’t show that resilience after our 120th setback this season… that’s a bit exaggerated, but we’ve had many!
So, I don’t know why he said it, what he meant with it, what examples he used for it to say this. Again, he said a lot of things throughout this season that I agree with him because I see similar things. I cannot always say them, but I’ve seen similar things, so it’s helpful for me now to say because I don’t have to go in detail which other ones I’m agreeing with. But this one, I disagree with him.
On whether the players ‘weren’t knitting the team together in terms of plans’…
That we are still not the unit and the force I would want us to be? Then, again, we are agreeing, but that also comes with not playing so many times together. Then, again, I need to go into details, which I prefer not to do, but it’s not like we are 11 individuals. If he meant that, I completely disagree. If he means that we are not perfectly playing together in ball possession and off the ball then he’s right, but that has nothing to do with an individual mentality, it has more to do with that the connections aren’t as strong yet as a team that’s already playing longer together in the same line-ups. So, not always Dominik Szoboszlai right full-back, No.8, No.10, right winger and all these things that we have to adjust to every single time. Then I see the same. But I see a team that is fighting together. That’s my opinion.
On where he would rank the importance of tomorrow’s game in terms of this season…
As the most important one because it’s the next one, but that’s a bit too simple. It’s always the next one that’s the most important. After Galatasaray, another big game is coming up – again with two days’ rest, by the way – against Brighton. We feel the importance of this game because we are able to reach the quarter-final of the Champions League and that would be something special for me because it would be my first and it would be special for all of us because we can never take a quarter-final in the Champions League for granted. No matter how much this club has performed in the past, we will always be happy of reaching that if we are able to beat Galatasaray tomorrow.
