K strong for difficult moments. If you win a lot then you are also mostly mentally a bit stronger. So, a very difficult team to face, both with a lot of qualities, but you cannot compare these teams. One is playing 5-4-1, the other one is playing 4-3-3, so different players, different manager and a different formation.
Liverpool confirm 21-man travelling squad for Galatasaray trip
On Galatasaray and their 5-1 defeat at Eintracht Frankfurt on matchday one…
Their loss against Frankfurt, I have watched that game and for me they were very, very, very unlucky in that game. The chances they gave away were only small and it was either the quality of Frankfurt or little bit of bad luck for Galatasaray that they conceded five because if they play the same game again, they will never, ever, ever concede five goals again in that same game because they played much better than the 5-1 showed. That’s also what you see now at the beginning of the season here in Turkiye, seven wins and only conceded two if I am correct, scored a lot of goals, so a very, very good team and a very good manager who has been so successful over here as a player. So they know what it takes to win the league and know what it takes to win a game of football, so we have to be prepared for that.
On the set-piece threat from Galatasaray…
I think you’ve already given the answer: we’ve shown we are a team that can defend set-pieces really well. More and more in football you see it becomes more and more a set-piece game. I know set-pieces are a part of football, but I watched Brentford [versus] Man United on the way up to Palace. I saw 25 minutes of that game and I think it was 20 minutes of long throw-ins, set-pieces, long throw-ins, set-pieces, corner kick, goal-kick… a goal-kick is not a set-piece, by the way! This is the style of football you see more and more mainly in the Premier League, in my opinion. There is a reason for me why it is done even more in the Premier League than in other leagues [and that’s] because in the Premier League you can do much more. You can attack a goalkeeper, for example, you can even touch him and it is not even a foul. This is something everybody likes about the Premier League, but in Europe this is definitely a bit different.
We knew Galatasaray were also strong on set-pieces, but I can tell you we were a force on set-pieces last season and we won our last Champions League game because of a set-piece [when] we scored the 3-2 with Virgil [van Dijk]. We were very, very, very close to scoring one against Palace. Every team you face at the moment, you have to be so, so, so well prepared when it comes to set-pieces. Back in the days when I was still playing, we only talked about football and there was not even a set-piece, let alone a set-piece meeting. Nowadays, set-piece meetings take just as long as the tactical meeting or the preparation for the game football-wise. That tells you the importance we give to set-pieces and I think every team around Europe gives to set-pieces.
On how much he is relying on the knowledge about Turkish football of assistant coach Giovanni van Bronckhorst, who was formerly head coach of Galatasaray’s rivals Besiktas…
Giovanni van Bronckhorst is one of my assistant coaches so he is part of the set-up if we discuss or talk about the team we face, if that is Palace or Everton or Atletico Madrid or, in this situation, Galatasaray. So he has knowledge about Turkish football, he knows these players, some of them, that we’re going to face tomorrow maybe better than the rest of the staff because we have not worked in this league and not played against them. But in modern football there are so many videos you can watch, you can watch so many games that every manager, even if you haven’t worked here, can know a lot about the other team. So yes, we have used Gio, as we have used the other assistant coaches as well.
Champions League
LIVERPOOL10 months ago