Jürgen, first of all, this will be your 12th Merseyside derby,
seven wins and four draws already,
Everton not challenging Liverpool for league position in that time either.
In some ways then do you feel you're still to experience the full extent of this local rivalry?
I don't know exactly what you mean, how it feels when you lose a derby or?
I've lost enough derbies in my life to know how it feels,
so I don't need that experience, to be honest.
But all the games were really difficult, especially before the game
because you make such a fuss of it all the time,
and yet we have to play the game. You build it up like crazy
and we still have to play it, and in the home games that worked better
than it obviously did in the away games.
But we were always in the game and that's what I'm most concerned about,
that we really... We always respected Everton, of course,
that's what we'll do this time, and for good reason,
because they are just a good football team and this year look especially good.
So, yeah, we should be spot-on, and we will be.
What has the international break been like for you?
I suppose particularly with concerns over the welfare of your players,
with so many of them having to travel?
Actually I don't like to answer this question because it always sounds like I'm moaning
about something I cannot change anyway.
If you want to be a serious journalist, write a piece about it,
about how it is when you play on Wednesday in Peru and on Saturday in Liverpool.
Whether it should be like this and what FIFA is doing around it,
how they help us with bringing the players back.
It was like always, they all came back healthy, which is good.
We had one-and-a-half days to make them match-ready - that's how it is.
Nothing else to say.
I just want to ask you in general terms about Project Big picture as well,
because fan groups have spoken and said football is a family,
it requires a fair share of resources to make sure the Premier League is competitive
and that lower leagues flourish as well.
They also said they're totally opposed to the one club, one vote collective ethos,
and Gary Neville says that football has proven incapable of governing itself
and has called for independent regulation.
What's your opinion on those views
compared with the proposals set out in Project Big Picture?
First I have to say that it's really important that we speak about it,
because I can't remember when we last spoke about something like this,
about the space for improvement within football.
A lot of times in life, there must be a crisis -
not necessarily a virus, but a crisis -
to start talking, and this time I'm really happy that now people talk about it,
because there are...
Yes, it's very competitive and that's positive, nobody wanted to change that.
I'm not really in it, to be honest,
it's not that I was involved or whatever,
I was informed from a specific moment on.
What I can say is that all the people I know involved are concerned about football -
yes, about Liverpool, that's normal, but about football in general.
That was their intention, so now other people can make of it what they want.
If you want to understand it, the idea behind it [you will],
if you don't want to, you just knock it down.
So it's not a problem, we will play football before that and after that,
but there are things we can improve,
and you always have to improve them now before you see the real problems
in the future, and that's what these people tried to do.
I think when the process keeps on going and people are discussing it,
then it's very, very positive.
- Hi, Jürgen. - Hi.
Obviously a brilliant start for Everton this season
and I understand you believe
under Carlo Ancelotti Everton can become the next proper challenger in the Premier League.
That's quite an accolade.
Yeah, I think you don't need to be a manager to see that,
it’s pretty clear that they did some good business and Carlo is a sensational manager.
So it was always clear that, when he has the time to build something, then he will do that,
if they have the resources to build something then he will do that, and that’s what he did.
This team looks really, really good -
I would like to say something different but it’s not possible!
So of course that’s a proper challenger.
Look, so many teams did really good business in this transfer window,
[business] which made real sense, and they all will improve.
I heard what West Ham are doing, for example, if they do something today
I don't know, but they improve.
So all teams improve in this league and that’s what everybody has to know about.
We know about that and that's why we have to be ready for each of these games
and tomorrow, in not even 24 hours, we can show that.
And we all know of course that it's 10 years since Everton won a derby,
how much does a record like that play into the mentality of both sets of players?
Or does it not?
Not at all. It's obviously an FSG thing, since they came in that's the case!
Of course from my point of view long may it [Liverpool’s unbeaten run] continue,
but we never really thought about it before we played them,
before we played Everton not once did we think, "They don’t win anyway",
these kind of things we never had in our minds.
It’s the hardest work for us tomorrow and we will be ready for that.
Thank you.
Pleasure.
Juliette, you know that your sofa is the same colour as your jumper.
Exactly.
No, it's not, that's red, that's...
It looks exactly the same from here.
It's funny!
This one might not make you smile!
It's been a bit of a wild ride in the Premier League in the first four games,
I was just wondering, because of the crazy scorelines,
fans don't seem to be allowed back into the stadiums any time soon,
whether that forces the mind to wander, the concentration of the players,
because the crowd isn't on you and maybe that could be one of the reasons
why we're seeing so many crazy scorelines so far?
It looks like it, to be honest, because nothing has changed, only the scoreline.
The scorelines and no people in the stadium.
So I think it makes sense that we see it like this,
I don't know 100 per cent, but I see the scorelines,
that's why, yeah, of course...
..the audience, or the crowd, they sharpen your focus,
that's completely normal and clear.
You have to do that by yourself constantly but it's no excuse for anyone anyway,
because one team scored seven and the other team scored only two,
so only one suffered from there being no crowd in the stadium.
There are still opportunities to use the situation instead of suffering from it,
so we don't really think about it but we know it's our own job
to bring ourself into the mood, the crowd will not help,
and cannot help, so, yeah, it's possible.
Hi, Jürgen. Just in terms of the leading scorers for both teams,
Dominic Calvert-Lewin for Everton, for you it's Mo Salah,
and I just wonder, Salah seems to be really sharp,
the kind of goals he's scoring are really impressive as well,
it's his best start to a season statistically,
how pleased and impressed have you been
with the way he's started this league campaign?
Very with the overall performance.
OK, he scored twice against Aston Villa and they are nice in the list.
But, of course, he would like to score in the other games
when we win or help the team to win, I know that.
But, yes, his overall performance was really good so far.
It looks like the complete performance - so, involved in the game,
being a proper option for us for passing
and still staying the incredibly sharp finisher.
Good season so far, for sure.
How much of is that is -
and I know we've spoken about Salah a lot in the last few years -
but how much of is that is natural ability and how much is practise, practise, practise?
Some of the goals this season where the ball's come really quickly to him,
he's hitting it first-time and the quality of the strike is just incredible.
Is that something you see him practising a lot or is it just natural instinct and ability?
All these players out there are a mix of all these things.
There's a lot of natural ability, of course,
but that alone doesn't bring you to the Premier League
and doesn't let you win trophies in football.
Without practising you have no chance, you have to do things again and again and again.
We do these things.
The boys don't have too much time after training
that they do another 20 minutes or whatever they want to do,
because of the tight schedule [and] from a physical point of view
that's not too smart and not really possible. But, of course, it's all about practising.
Like I said, the skillset of Mo is already outstanding
but without his attitude during all his career, he would not be close to the player he is now.
So, it's a mix.
Hi, Jürgen.
Like always I don't see you.
Top row, four along.
Here we go.
Aside from the complications of the international break,
which you don't want to talk about, when you get players back on a Thursday
then you've got the added complications of COVID testing,
how does that impact your team selection for a game that kicks off at 12:30?
So first and foremost I would say we are both in the same situation;
Everton had players away and so did we, so that's fair, if you want.
When we decided these games at 12:30 on Saturday
there was never a triple-header [of international games] involved,
that the boys had to play three games in a time when they'd usually play two,
it's already difficult enough to sort that.
So, yeah, you can do it once
but there shouldn't be a chance that the same teams have to do it twice.
So now the challenge is always...
..we make all the decisions with the knowledge we have in this second,
we make the decision and then sometimes we have to overthink it again
because something comes in between,
but most of the FAs had very serious testing programmes,
we brought most of the players back on private planes as much as we could,
where they don't get in contact with anybody else and these kinds of things.
When you come back from international teams you don't have to do testing
before you play, the Premier League obviously trusts the specific FAs,
so that's not necessarily what we have to do, but we do it for us anyway.
We would expect all the results to be negative,
because the positive cases we had so far were all explained by travel and stuff,
now they travel again but in a closed environment
with the national teams, and they have the same reason we have to keep them safe.
So that's different to usual travelling, I would say.
Just following on from that, what are you like team news-wise this weekend,
and how has Alisson been progressing in the two weeks he's had?
Very, very positive with Ali, it looks really good. [He's] made big steps.
I don’t have a timeframe, but it looks really good.
That’s it, pretty much.
Naby will not be ready.
Apart from that...
Long-term of course, Oxlade-Chamberlain is not and so on,
but the others all came back healthy from the internationals.
You're on mute, Lars.
No, you're still on mute.
Jürgen, over the international break have you had the time
to reflect on the season so far, and what are you pleased with,
what are you not-so-pleased with?
As well if you look at the current situation that the city of Liverpool is in,
in terms of COVID-19 and tier three,
is this derby even more important for the city,
in terms of the social restrictions in the city,
that you have two really strong Premier League teams going at each other?
Could you please mute yourself again?
Joking.
The question was so long I forget what we're talking about -
what was it with three and COVID?
Come into that in a second, assess the season so far.
Ah. OK, the derby is a big one in Liverpool obviously.
This city is, I like to think, not exactly 50-50 but a lot of people obviously support Everton
and all the rest supports Liverpool.
I don’t think you’d find one person in Liverpool who is not really interested in football.
Even if you are not interested, you know somebody who is that much interested
that you cannot really ignore it.
So, yes, it’s a big one, we know that.
If it’s now bigger because of the COVID situation in the city, I don’t know.
When you are in the city, I don’t say it’s normal,
it’s not normal like it’s pretty much everywhere not normal,
and we know about the restrictions.
We don’t feel them here [at Melwood] but we know about them
and I think this game is as important as ever but not more because of COVID.
I don’t see that it depends on that.
But, yeah, the question was longer so maybe I forgot parts?
That's all good, OK.
I presume from what you said before
that Sadio and Thiago will be available for tomorrow,
and given that, when players have had the virus and came back,
obviously one of the associated symptoms is fatigue,
so how careful do you have to be to bed them in when they're training
and not least to play 90 minutes?
Yeah, of course, we all learn on a daily basis about it.
They are in training for five or six days [now].
Then, of course, we assess that every day.
We have our specific measurements, how we do it with heart rate
and how we can measure if they are more fatigued than usual and stuff like this.
They both looked really good, to be honest.
We are very close with the doctors and we don’t want to -
and would never - risk anybody.
Usually in these cases, in at least the last three, four, five days of the quarantine
the boys are already ready. They cannot come out of quarantine,
but they are on treadmills, on the bike and these kind of things,
so when they start training again it is not that they start from nil.
They have still a proper shape, so it should be fine.
So many things are new in the moment
and this is one of the things which is really new, but we try to be as sensible as possible.
I'm just wondering, without the crowds in the stadium,
has it changed the way you communicate with your players during the game?
I'd like to think so, but obviously at Aston Villa it didn't work,
so that went in the wrong direction.
There are situations when I want to make a point clear and the boys don't look at me
because they think they know anyway what I want to say -
that's really interesting, I had this discussion with one or two after the game.
So, yes, we can communicate more, but football is not this kind of sport
where you should judge or commentate
on each situation on the pitch.
All the work we do on the training pitch, yes, I can give help in specific situations,
but it's not like I'm a radio commentator
and say whatever they have to do in the next situation,
I never understood that really.
But it's easier than when the stadium is full, 100 per cent,
that's one of the very, very few advantages [of playing behind closed doors].