Tottenham vs Liverpool
It's a bright, crisp Friday morning at Liverpool's Melwood training ground and Jurgen Klopp is feeling refreshed.
For the primary time in months, he and his players have had a full week to organize for his or her next match. There was no midweek game and a rare time off on Monday. "A time off during this period seems like fortnight switching off when he's ready to ben't a drag, either. What does he do? "Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Hanging around during a corner. I had a two-hour afternoon nap. there have been two dog walks and that is it," he says. "Great! Liverpool was relentless during that hectic schedule through November, December and into January, winning 12, drawing one and suffering just the solitary defeat, when Club World Cup commitments forced them into fielding a team made from academy players against Aston Villa within the Carabao Cup.
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| Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp believes Tottenham head coach Jose Mourinho is still a world-class manager and respects his winning mentality. |
But despite all the success, it had been a challenging period.
Klopp compares the role of a manager when faced with the run of games Liverpool has had and therefore the once-a-week program he enjoyed at Mainz and initially at Borussia Dortmund as "completely different, like between being a cyclist and an astronaut."Post-game and pre-game analysis, as an example, had to be dramatically condensed over the festive period.
"I always made a long analysis of the games at Mainz," says Klopp. "My duty for myself was to organize the analysis overnight [after a game] and therefore the next morning session was to inform the boys, 'OK, check out this, that was good, that wasn't so good'."Now it's like this - you are available on Monday morning and you play on Wednesday another opponent, therefore the analysis is now like [Klopp clicks his fingers]. 'It was like this, this which, now here's the preparation for the subsequent game'. that creates it really difficult.
"At Mainz, I wont to watch five games alone of the subsequent opponent. If I do this now then I do not sleep between Sunday and Wednesday!"
Klopp and Liverpool found how through. At the top of that demanding spell, they stand a seemingly insurmountable 13 points clear at the highest of the Premier League. Tough tests await over their next two fixtures, away to Tottenham and reception to Manchester United, but pass those and it'll become difficult to contain the thrill on Merseyside. Just round the corner from where we're sat is 'The Champions Wall', listing the trophies in Liverpool's cabinet. Figure 18 under 'league titles' could soon need amending.
There's no talk about that from Klopp, though. He has just used his news conference to underline that neither he, his players nor his staff is that specializes in records, points totals or their place in history. the main target remains, as ever, on the subsequent game.
"We were looking forward to thereto [day off] after the last game. But OK, it's done," he said. "Then you get within the next morning and your only concern is Tottenham and zip else."
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| Did Jose Mourinho's analysis of Man Utd's draw with Liverpool in October on Sky Sports reveal how he might set his Tottenham team up against the Premier League leaders on Saturday? |
Klopp has been wary of Liverpool losing their intensity in the week and adjustments are made in training. "It was dum, dum, dum, dum and now another rhythm and that we need to confirm we leave there on Saturday with all we've," he says. "We need to confirm we use that point, with a touch little bit of mental rest."
So what have the analysis preparations for Jose Mourinho's side entailed? "It's a mixture of what Jose did at United and what he's doing now because we've not played Jose at Tottenham yet," said Klopp. "We do not know for 100 percent but we attempt to use our experience with Jose and Tottenham to be also prepared as possible.
"We realize it is going to be a troublesome one. Tottenham may be a top side during a not so good moment. Not the instant they need to be in. which makes a team always dangerous."
Earlier this season, while he was a pundit for Sky Sports, Mourinho highlighted how a coffee block - or deep defense - had allowed Manchester United to prevent Liverpool at Old Trafford. It's a formula the Portuguese manager has used repeatedly himself and a possible tactic for a Spurs side shorn of their star striker Harry Kane this weekend. But Klopp wasn't put out by Mourinho's criticism of his team's struggles to interrupt down United that day and says his side are a special proposition themselves now.
"Oh, we are a special team since then," said Klopp. "But it's still the most important challenge for every eleven within the world, playing against a coffee block.
"I would say the simplest team within the world at it's Manchester City, but even they struggle from time to time because it's just difficult.
"It's about always right decisions, forcing the opponent into a situation he is not comfortable with, using the space behind the last line as long as you'll because once they drop there are not tons there any more… of these quite things. But we are a totally different team.
"If I do know the boys are during a really intense period and play, play, play, play then we use that one break where they do not play for one week for immediately new things, then that's not OK," he says.
"If once you were in class, you go there and have four or five tests during a row, then you've got three days off until subsequent test and someone comes in and starts telling you something completely new, you think that 'come on, I'm not ready for that'.
"So, what we do is we attempt to improve the great things. There aren't tons of things that are completely not acceptable, so we do not need to worry that. We just need to remind again why we are the team we are at the instant, what did we do so that we became that sort of team and that is what we attempt to neutralize training.
"Like that specialize in our strengths, our philosophy, what are the items we would like to ascertain on the pitch? it isn't bringing new things. Developing means doing proper things again and again. that is what we attempt to do."
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| Jordan Henderson celebrates his second-half equalizer against Tottenham earlier this season |
One thing this Liverpool team certainly have right is their mentality. After all, racking up 37 games without defeat requires a particular mindset. Klopp says it's how his players have learned from setbacks within the past - and the way they assist their younger team-mates not make an equivalent mistake - which is that the real key.
"A lot of things lead into the mentality," Klopp says. "The big defeats lead into the mentality. If you'll get a mentality of, let's say, 'never give up', before that you simply need to hand over once or twice to understand that's how it feels to offer up so don't do this again. this is often the training process.
"So we had tough, tough moments. We lost big finals, the most important finals in world football, which made us able to win."We brought in one or two players but the bulk of the group is together for 2 or three years and a few of them for four or five or longer, so that means we did that together and that is the foremost important thing.
"And then for the younger boys, they need the right role models. so that they make a number of the mistakes they might make but now but they do not do this because Milly, Hendo, Adam, Gini, Virg tell them 'don't do that'. It helps, although a number of the mistakes you've got to form yourself to understand that's not OK.
"And the opposite thing is, if a 30-year-old player doesn't hand over, why should an 18-year-old player give up? you would like to find out from the simplest and during this a part of the sport we've needless to say a number of the simplest within the world, and that is clear.
"The boys have had really tough times. Now they need better times."
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Lets play.