On assessing Liverpool’s business in the transfer window…
We pretty much have to reinvent the team. The midfield is now already and will be completely new. Over the last few years we had to do the same with our front line. The most stable area is obviously the last line but now not because of the injuries and the suspensions. And we had to do that in a season where we didn’t qualify for the Champions League, which has a massive impact, that’s how it is. I know people expected it to be different but it’s how it is. So I really think we did good business.
The players we brought in are really good, will help the team, will even get better. And I think especially for Macca and Dom, everybody could see that already. For Endo, it’s a massive step, a massive change in the way he used to play and the way we play, so that obviously needs a bit of time to get there but it’s no problem. And so, I really like the team. When I look at it before we start the game and you look at the line-up and, yes, the options on the bench were in the last weeks now a bit young but even that is great. I think everybody loves it when Ben Doak is coming on and when he’s having his minutes in all these kind of games. Stefan is back in full training. So yes, we got younger, but we had to. We are lesser experienced but that’s normal. But we are full of desire. I love this team.
On how impressed he was with Trent Alexander-Arnold’s performance last weekend after an early yellow card…
Yeah, super. I think a lot of people would have thought, and I thought as well for a minute or two, do we have to change him? Do we have to make that change already? And I’m very happy that I didn’t do it and I’m even more happy how Trent got through this game because it is difficult. I think we all agree that everybody in the stadium besides the Liverpool fans wanted him to go off as well in the next situation and I’m pretty sure it would have happened if Trent would have given anybody the chance to do so. That was a big step in his development, absolutely, to keep his calm and even to step up in the game, because he was really in it. He was super-important, in the defensive part, before the first goal; it’s not now a pass everybody will remember forever but it was a sensational pass through the lines – Mo, Diogo, bam, in behind. How I said, we learned already a lot this season. We will learn more but we have to use as well already what we have learned so far.
