Coronavirus dominated pre-match discourse for Jurgen Klopp as Liverpool await further results amid an ever-changing landscape in the Premier League.
Here are four key points from the manager as he met with the press ahead of Sunday’s game:
No new COVID cases – yet
The club are still waiting to see if Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Curtis Jones all received false-positive tests on Thursday.
The remainder of the squad is to report for training later in the day and the Reds will know more as to if the virus has been contained or in fact has spread.
“In this moment, nobody else [is] positive but it’s pretty early still and the players come a bit later, so we will see.”
A large part of the press conference was spent discussing the current situation, and Klopp questioned why other clubs aren’t being as transparent as Liverpool are in the process.
To stop the league, or not?
It is a question being presented to managers in the light of five more games being postponed.
And while Klopp isn’t against the idea, it’s a case of when do you play the games you’ve postponed and would the landscape have changed should you take a break.
“I’m not against stopping the league, I just don’t see the 100 percent benefit of it,” Klopp explained.
“Between stopping the league and carrying on there are different levels which we can talk about.
“Stopping the league now for one week or two weeks means five, six games, when do you want to play them? Maybe it won’t be in our hands anymore and it’ll be like this.
“But as long as we can decide it, when do we want to play the games? The other thing is we just play on, really difficult.”
Trent might have to wait “another 5 years…”
After landing a rocket of a strike into the net against Newcastle, Alexander-Arnold said it was one he’s been waiting for, for more than five years.
And Klopp joked that to do the same again he might be waiting another five years.
“I didn’t ask him, but when he grew up he saw Steven Gerrard quite frequently scoring goals like this and knowing you have a very good shooting technique yourself you want to score these goals.
“It’s not like he’s 20 times a game in the half-left half-space where he scored, so it’s pretty much the only space he isn’t very often so to score from there he might have to wait another five years for it!”
What about Diogo?
Is Diogo Jota underrated? Certainly not in Klopp’s eye.
“Diogo is an incredible player. I don’t know why you ask me about underrated or under the radar because they are not under my radar.
“Diogo is an exceptional player, Mo is an exceptional player and by the way, Sadio Mane is really, really good in the moment. Just unlucky in the last moment.
“All these boys have incredible quality. Diogo in the last few months has developed a proper killer instinct, right moments and right spaces and link up with Sadio is exceptional.”
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