Jurgen Klopp spoke in the pre-match press conference before the game against Tottenham Hotspurs on Sunday 19th December. Only four matches are being played this weekend. The rest of the games are postponed due to the spread of COVID-19 among the players. The title race doesn’t need to wait as the top three teams’ fixtures are not yet postponed.
An Away fixture for the top three teams as Newcastle United host the leaders’ Manchester City. Wolves hold third-placed Chelsea. And Tottenham Hotspurs host Second Placed Liverpool. These games are very important as these three points are very Valuable as only one point separates the top two.
Tottenham Hotspurs’ last Premier league game was on 5th December against Norwich City. The Spurs had their last three Premier League matches postponed due to covid 19. Thus their players are well rested and come to play after 15 days. Whereas The Reds played their last game last Friday against Newcastle United.
4 Key poitns from Jurgen Klopp’s pre-match press conference ahead of Tottenham
Four key things from the Boss’s pre-match press conference
No new Covid Cases
Has Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, and Curtis Jones all received a false positive report on Thursday. The Boss is sure that there were no new cases and all the players are ready for training and the game. we have to wait and see whether the virus is contained or it’s spreading.
No, it’s not confirmed yet. It’s an ongoing process, let me say it like this, but they are not there. They are fine apart from that.
In this moment, nobody else is positive but it’s pretty early still and the players come a bit later, so we will see.
Should the league be stopped?
As six more games get postponed Jurgen was asked should the league be stopped.
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.
Jurgen on Trent’s Goal against Newcastle
Trent Alexander-Arnold fired in a rocket at 87th minute against Newcastle United on Friday. After the game, Trent said that he had waited five years to score a goal like that. Jurgen Klopp joked that Trent has to wait for another five to do it again.
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!
On Diego Jota as a player
When asked if Diego Jota is an Underrated player
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.
It’s an important game for the Reds in the title race and they have to win and keep the momentum going. Spurs will also be focusing on a win as they are fighting to climb up the table.
