Jürgen Klopp discusses Thiago Alcantara’s first year as a Liverpool player and his midfield preparation during his pre-match interview with Crystal Palace.
Saturday will literally mark 12 months since Thiago joined the Reds from Bayern Munich. Which will welcome Patrick Vieira’s team to Anfield in the Premier League at 9pm.
Read on for the rest of Klopp’s pre-match comments. Eagles here…
first year assessment Thiago with the club And he thinks there’s nothing from the number players. 6 How much more than this?…
Much more, because the start wasn’t perfect he came here, contracted COVID-19, was injured early on. and something like that Of course that makes things more difficult but he has shown us the type of player he can be for us. and it will be for us So of course there will be more to come, maybe it’s a year but it’s only half a year due to everything that is happening around. Coming to a new club at the most difficult time of our lives, he has adapted really well despite that. His family is here, love it. He’s the center of the team – it’s a case that happened very quickly – and he has character. And it has a really nice personality. And of course he is a world class player. so everything is ok
Talk about the tactical coaching he has given Thiago for the games.…
Of course, it differs from players as there are some inherent skills that players have. In Thiago’s case, every technical skill seemed easy to him. But of course he must And he’ll have to adapt to the way we play, the way we defend, all these things. He might be playing the two-man No. 6 role more often at Bayern, maybe. Will be a bit more of an attacking player, but for us it’s a complicated position. You have to attack, you have to defend, you have to be really between the stances, you can go back but not always on the last stance to get the ball – all these things. But he is a true natural footballer. It’s not like we now let him do 50, 60 different things between games. We want him to play his football with a few things that he has to adjust to the way we play. And he did that, so everything was fine.
Now, I didn’t ask him to constantly cut behind the last stance or anything like that. Of course, he’s a playmaker who can sometimes stand a little deeper, but has to be between two interesting opponents that are often more interesting in the immediate vicinity. But with this pass, he could instantly change the game. He has a great vision. And he can ship anywhere he wants – like a real golfer, a good golfer, a world-class golfer. Of course, he could do that without even thinking about it. I love the way he plays, everything is fine I would say, it’s a complicated position for us. But since we have different skill sets, we use different skill sets over and over again when we think this skill makes more sense than against this opponent – more life, more running. More cut backs, more natural offensive play, more natural defensive play, all of these things. So that’s the reason for the different line-ups.
Talking about how Thiago was given the opportunity to become a starter with Jordan Henderson and Fabinho only once…
What I would say is that they can work together really well. And it might happen in the future – there’s no doubt about that. As I said, we have a lot of different skill sets. And I don’t have the top three players in midfield – why should I? All the boys have to present in training, and if they present in training after that I have to make a decision even when we only have three days between two games, we try to prepare against the opponent. Take it as seriously as possible. And that means how you can get a little advantage? It’s not only we that always start what you truly want to do. There might be different occasions in the game against the opponent, so we have to use that. that’s what we do Nothing about Thiago or whatever. The Premier League is very intense. Imagine if you only had 4 midfielders, and 3 of them had to play all the time. And one person comes in sometimes – that just doesn’t work. It’s a position that takes a lot of intensity with so many serious tackles that we need to be as fresh as possible to be ready to face them. that’s what we do
Again, this year has started off perfectly for Thiago. So because of the Euros, he came in a bit behind the others, after that he came here, got injured and he might start pre-season with us later than the others. So that’s not perfect, but it’s not a huge problem. Meanwhile we are now in the fifth game of the Premier League, so we are going to be there. But it’s a long season to come and again, each player you’ll be fitter to be ready for what we’re trying to use. As we do that, sometimes other players may have to play with a full pre-season. Autumn is coming, winter is coming, spring is coming and then the very first very important summer is coming, and hopefully we can get them all fit. and can be fresh And it’s going to be a really tough player to play with.
Are there plans to try to develop the middle ground?…
We try to improve every year, so that’s the way it is, improving every year. I would say one of the things you see now is a really flexible triangle on the right side again. It was that flexibility that, at the end of the day, Mo Salah had to defend the full right-back! Because Trent is in the penalty area. And Hendo is in the middle of the field or whatever. We want that but of course we’re still in the process of adapting that we don’t really turn up the tactics in that kind of situation but other than that, it will always give you a little attacking advantage. But defensively you’re a bit more open, so you have to calculate, you really have to have the continuity for that right. But that’s definitely different from last year. We want to do that with both wings, we need flexible triangles, we need support. Usually when Bobby plays, there’s a lot of support from him with a back down but especially in the last game we didn’t want that – we did it differently.
So these are things. that we talk about It’s not that we just tell them who the next opponent is, play the same game again we really try to improve. And we really try to improve. For that, the door is wide open, very open to everyone who is a part of it. So far it has worked really well. With Harvey, it’s just wonderful to see how naturally he does that. A young player like him, you don’t have to deal with 500,000 records, we just let him play and have a look, ‘Okay, what comes naturally? And where does he need a little advice or whatever?’ He didn’t need much advice. He only plays in that position. And it’s really great to see, that’s why he plays. He was there in full pre-season, he had every training session, that’s why he played. But now Hendo plays in that position. and Naby came on the other side. And offensively he plays superb – it really dominates the game and all that stuff. So it’s great to see that we can do that and again, I’ve said it’s the football engine room, this midfield, we only have three good players and not five or whatever. That means they have to be fit. And control the game as much as we can really, and that’s why sometimes we make decisions like this.
