Hi, Jürgen, are you well?
Yes!
Thank you, and you?
Yeah, not too bad, thanks.
First of all, obviously football is making an important stand this weekend
with the boycott of social media. Can you give us an idea of the impact
online hate and abuse has on the football club,
maybe of the time you and your staff have to devote to the fallout?
And also, the impact you see it having on the individuals targeted.
So, I think I said it before, I'm not the most experienced person with social media things.
But, of course, we had cases where players...
faced some weird things on social media.
And, yes, I had some talks as well with the boys then,
didn't happen too often actually, because we have a pretty good set-up for that,
we have smarter people than me, people who know better about the issues
that could show up and all these kind of things.
The world of a football player is anyway a pretty public world
and you can ask players from the past what kind of life they had around football games
and how much joy they had around that - that has all disappeared,
that cannot happen anymore for a lot of reasons,
and one of them is social media.
But anyway, it's used by a lot of people on this planet, so it's a very important thing to do
and I support, obviously, the boycott, the club supports the boycott.
I'm happy that we all together sent a sign,
because things in this department, for sure, need to change.
We cannot influence all of it, but as much power as we have as a unit, or as a society,
we should try to use in this moment.
I really hope it has an impact.
With regards to the football this weekend,
how necessary do you feel it is for your chances of finishing in the top four
to finally win at Old Trafford as Liverpool manager?
Oh, more than 100 per cent,
and even if the others all win then nothing changed really for us.
But without winning football games,
we will not end up in any kind of European competition.
For us everything is clear - we have to win.
What do you expect from the game then?
Because not only is it the biggest rivalry in English football,
it's a game that could see Manchester City confirmed as title winners,
United are out to keep their own faint title hopes alive as well,
whether City beat Crystal Palace or not.
Of course, a very tough game, a very intense game hopefully for both teams.
We could see last night Man United playing and they are good!
Especially after [a] half-time talk.
It looks like they were really flying.
So, it's a tough one, but whatever it means for other clubs, I have no idea.
I didn't know until you told me now,
actually I thought City is already champion - not mathematically, I know.
But, of course, strange things can happen in football
and I'm pretty sure United believe still in their chance and that's good.
So it will be a game where two teams try to win it -
this is a good start for a football game, I would say.
Actually both teams have to win it, which is a good recipe for a good game as well,
so let's see what we can make of that.
Hello, Jürgen. Obviously they're going to be very up for the game,
because they've come off the back of a big victory in Europe,
but they only have three or four days to prepare.
You've been in that situation before,
what kind of insight can you offer into that situation?
Oh, it's completely different, it's different to our situation now.
When you play on Thursday and Sunday again,
yes, United has got used to that during the season but that doesn't make it better.
It's really a tough challenge, definitely, for them.
Today they obviously recover, tomorrow they have second-day recovery
and on the next day they play again,
so there's not a lot you can really do in training to change things or whatever.
But I don't think United anyway wanted to change a lot.
I think like 75 per cent of the team is the same team playing most of the games -
last line, midfield pretty much [is] Fred, [Scott] McTominay,
maybe [Nemanja] Matic comes in, and then the four up front,
[Bruno] Fernandes is playing pretty much all games,
and the other three he can change from time to time.
So is it [Marcus] Rashford up front or [Mason] Greenwood up front,
is it [Daniel] James on the wing or Greenwood on the wing,
is Rashford on the wing, or [Paul] Pogba on the wing?
Obviously Pogba played again a really good game last night.
So who we will face is pretty clear.
That they cannot make massive changes
and probably will not make, if they had no injuries last night, I think that's clear.
It's tough, but how I said, we had in the last years as well
always late in the season these kind of fixtures -
playing Wednesday Champions League and then on Saturday the Premier League.
We had to win all the games and we tried to do that.
Most of the time it worked out for us.
So it's just a fight, to fight yourself -
but they know that themselves as well and we have to fight as well.
Especially if you play Tuesday and Saturday, that's absolutely no problem.
Or Thursday and you would play Monday, that's absolutely no problem.
Thursday-Sunday is a challenge, but how I said, they had a lot of good results
after being on international duty during the week.
They will be fine, I'm afraid.
Any updates on the injuries, either long-term or any new ones?
No.
All the same.
..in this moment.
Hello, Jürgen, hope you're well. Just off the back of that question,
we saw a video of Virgil van Dijk doing some running yesterday,
you know where I'm going with this,
is that prognosis still the same?
You said previously you don't expect him to play this season but it's not impossible.
I don’t have enough English words to describe the same thing more often.
Yes, he is running - Hendo is running, Joe [Gomez] is running, Joel [Matip] is running.
That’s all good; imagine they wouldn’t be able to run in the moment,
that would be really bad.
They are running and in rehab it always starts with straight-line running;
I’m not sure if you saw Virg running a lot of curves or just straight,
so there are a lot of things to come.
You go through a lot of steps until you are finally ready to join team training,
especially with long-term injuries -
there are a lot of steps to go and they are all quite a way from that.
It means nobody told me, "Fasten your seatbelt, make yourself ready,
"the boys will be in team training next week."
No, nothing changed really, but they are in a good way.
Being in the Champions League next season or not being in it,
what difference do you think that will make
in terms of what your squad looks like next season?
I don't know, what do you mean exactly?
Does that affect any potential transfer business or contractual situations?
I don't think so really. Playing Champions League obviously is massive,
from especially a financial point of view, for the club it's really important.
If we cannot make that, that's not good, definitely not.
But, no, I don't think it will change anything
because the situation was difficult before, is difficult after,
football is in a difficult situation.
So, no, I don't think it will change a lot.
- Hi, Jürgen. - Hi.
After last weekend's result against Newcastle
you spoke about the confidence amongst the players,
confidence in front of goal, I'm just wondering, with that in mind,
is Old Trafford the best place to go when confidence is lacking?
We will see. For sure it's a game, whichever situation you are in,
when you are a Liverpool player or Liverpool manager
this is the game where you have to give absolutely everything anyway.
Is it the best place to go after conceding a late goal against Newcastle?
I don't know.
Is it the best place to go after watching them score five goals in one half last night?
I don't know. It's not important really,
because between now and then a lot of things can happen,
we just have to make sure we are ready for it.
It doesn't happen really often that you face an opponent
in exactly the right moment, so like with [them] having five red cards
in the last game and little niggles so that they all cannot play.
They looked pretty good last night, to be honest,
and we have to make sure that we are ready for that.
But I have no worries that we will not [be], to be honest.
We had a good training week, we trained intensely,
we tried to simulate the intensity of our normal rhythm
and that means we will have the right legs to go in,
and then we have to see what we make of it.
Is confidence the most elusive thing for a manager to work on,
because it's so personal to each individual?
Yeah, of course.
It's now not that difficult, but it's like you work on it
and then unfortunately you have directly another game,
and then you can lose it again, because you don't score in this and that situation,
and stuff like this.
In the last three games we had 36 chances, I think, and scored twice,
so that's obviously not a number you want to have.
But there are two things you can read out of that -
yeah, we don't score often enough, but we create as well quite a decent number
and that's what we have to keep doing.
We try to help the boys.
We show them the situation [but are] not shouting at them and going for them,
"How can you not score in this situation?"
It's just giving them different options in the moment,
helping them with the right information.
So after the game obviously I was not in a good mood,
nobody should have been, but I was not as well.
A day later it was slightly better, but not much,
two days later I was completely fine and I watched then
five or six games of us in two days and just tried to understand the things even better,
even though I'd watched them before.
A lot of things work really out for us still on a football pitch,
but it's all covered by the not-often-enough finishing and by conceding late.
You can concede a late goal obviously, that happens in football,
but when it costs you pretty much everything you worked for before
then it's really harsh, and we had that now twice in a row.
Which is not cool, but it happened.
What we now try to be again, and I am,
is very positive about our chances in the next game - that's all I need.
The boys look like they are positive as well,
that's important in football, and we have to go again.
And in times when you didn't score enough goals in recent times or recent games,
it's always like this: you have to overcome it.
It doesn't happen to you, it's not that the ball rolls in front of your foot
and you only have to push it over the line - that will not happen.
You just have to bring yourself again in these decisive situations
[and] when you are there then you try to make the right decision.
That's what we are working on with a lot of things in training
and talks obviously as well, and video sessions.
It was a busy week, but no problem,
I have nothing else to do so we try to use the time.