REACTION: Jürgen Klopp press conference: Fulham draw, reaching Wembley, Gomez and more
Jürgen Klopp says his Liverpool team cannot wait to visit Wembley again in the Carabao Cup final, believing his players showed how much it meant to reach the showpiece in a battling performance at Fulham.
The Reds secured a place in next month’s final following a 3-2 aggregate victory over Marco Silva’s men in the capital on Wednesday evening.
A 1-1 draw on the night in the semi-final second leg at Craven Cottage saw Luis Diaz on the scoresheet, which was enough to set up a meeting with Chelsea at the national stadium in a repeat of the 2022 final.
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Klopp gave his reaction to the achievement in a post-match press conference afterwards – read a summary of what he had to say below…
On how pleased he was by Liverpool’s performance and qualifying for the final…
Very. Getting the draw, Fulham you just have to look at where we played first. I would think everybody would say they would prefer the second game at home, but we play our home game first and we win 2-1 and we are all long enough in the business to really know that nothing [was decided]. Half-time, all good. You would expect that Fulham comes here today flying out of the blocks. I liked our first 30 minutes, really a lot. We were just ready for this game, that’s the most important thing. I heard Marco [Silva]’s press conference yesterday and I love it. I respect him so much, that’s why I had a look at it: when you see [he said] it is the most important game, maybe of the season, and stuff like this. They want to go for the final and all these kind of things and I know what it means to them. I told the boys I know what it means to us, but we have to show it to the outside world, that we want it as much as they want it. I saw that.
After half an hour, we had scored one goal and I think we could have scored a second one, the game opens up slightly. We go to half-time, wanted to play more football, wanted to control the game more again. Then they came out and they press for a while, but we understood the game slightly better. I liked the second half as well. We should’ve scored, there were two situations: I think the counter-attack… everything was perfect and then Lucho [Diaz] doesn’t find the right player, which was a little bit of a shame, and when Harvey [Elliott] could shoot with his slightly weaker right foot. We could’ve put the game to bed, but we didn’t.
Then 1-1, Harry Wilson, another Liverpool boy in a really good moment, to be honest, and then you have to bring it over the line and we did. It feels great, we are really happy. The dressing room was really happy, the boys wanted it, the boys got it and now we have, I don’t know, 10 games to play until the final in four weeks or so, so a few games coming up before that, but we are looking forward to Wembley, definitely.
On what he thought of Diaz’s performance…
Very good. He’s a fantastic player, absolutely. Absolutely no criticism but I wish he would’ve set up the second and scored the third because first half it was a fantastic football situation where he was in a similar situation like when he scored. But playing-wise, what a boy! The speed, the power he can generate, the technique, the combination of all that… it is absolutely outstanding. I am really happy. I liked Darwin [Nunez]’s performance a lot today as well, to be honest. He was maybe not involved in these kind of finish situations, but to defend him is a nightmare, to be honest. He was everywhere, he kept the ball and all these kind of things.
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The boys bring us that, we can use from time to time. It was just a good game, a good cup game. Whoever expected tonight that we just show quality and we get through and this will be a walk in the park doesn’t understand the game and doesn’t understand the importance of the occasion. Both teams wanted to go to Wembley – and we qualified and that’s all we could wish for.
On the decision to play Jarell Quansah in such an important game…
I don’t know exactly how it looks with Jarell but he looks pretty calm around all these kind of things, so it’s not like we now mentioned during the week five or six times, ‘By the way it’s a semi-final, don’t forget it, if we lose we are not going to Wembley.’ We try to help the boys at least with a bit of the experience we had over the years. He is just a good player. Just a really good player. That’s the most important thing. Conor Bradley, I don’t think he played in a semi-final, to be honest. Bobby Clark if [he has] then at youth level. These boys are essential for what we do in the moment and it is really nice for them. You can see how they grow every day, it’s a really cool experience for us and for them and it helped them a lot in the last few weeks.
On how important Joe Gomez has been for his team this season…
Without Joe nothing would’ve happened in the last pretty much 13 [or] 14 weeks since Robbo [Andy Robertson] is out. Yes, because he could play there, but the things we could do with Trent [Alexander-Arnold] when we brought Joey on, I don’t exactly [know] how many games [he] played now this year, but I would say 20-something already. Not only games, [he] played exceptional today again. He’s a real defender and he comes inside. He’s doing that really well. He tried a couple of times obviously to finish the discussion about not scoring. I would say for my taste from a bit too far but it’s still alright. He is a life-saver, to be honest, that he was here, that he could play, and people forget how important Joey was in the best years we had. I don’t know how many games he played in the year when we became champions and how many games he played when we won the Champions League. A lot and rightly so because he’s a top-class player.
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On Liverpool fans unveiling an ‘imagine being us’ banner and what it is actually like…
There are worse situations, definitely. [That’s] clear. But, look, I can tell you it’s completely fine for our fans to feel it like that. Absolutely fine. I’m really happy and pleased for them. But we play in three days against Norwich. That’s my problem, if you want. Four days. But then three days after that we play Chelsea and then Arsenal. So, yeah, imagine being us and playing all the games we have to play! That’s not as enjoyable as watching it but it’s fine. Absolutely fine.
On Caoimhin Kelleher starting in goal and his faith in Quansah…
That’s a different situation a little bit between Caoimhin and Jarell. Jarell is part of, if you want, the rotation group. That’s how it is [and] we have to. Imagine now we played two all the time. We don’t want to do it [and] we will not. As long as we can make these decisions, we will. Caoimhin is a top, top, top goalie. And when Ali is fit he doesn’t have a lot of games, so I want to give him desperately the opportunity to play. It’s important for development and he deserves it on top of that because he is always there. He’s giving absolutely everything, like Adrian, by the way, he’s the same. They deserve moments and this competition I told Ali before the season, no, two years ago it was already like that.
I don’t know exactly how many games he played now already but with the Europa League it’s a few. That’s how it works. He was really happy after the game today. He’s not smiling a lot, at least when I’m around, but after the game I could see he was really happy about qualifying again and having the chance again to win another trophy in his career. It would be a big one. But we all know it’s Chelsea and they probably want to put history right after playing us twice two years ago. It’s just great.
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