‘Retirement’, Nunez’s ears & Konate update – 5 things from Klopp’s press conference

Jurgen Klopp had plenty to talk about after Liverpool beat Sparta Prague 5-1, mentioning ‘retirement’, Darwin Nunez‘s ears and Ibrahima Konate‘s injury.

Here are five key points from the manager’s post-match press conference…

An OK performance, a brilliant result!

Klopp admitted that “the result is much better than the performance.

He expanded on that, saying: “Our protection was not good so they good create these counter-attacks. We lost a few unnecessary balls which is then difficult to protect, but in other moments we should have done better.

“We adapted with the game.”

“The boys felt the intensity”

On his ambitions to win the Europa League, Klopp commented: “We try really hard, like we could see could see tonight.

“It was not like we were sloppy in the way that we thought ‘Oh yeah, we can do that on 80 percent’.

“We made mistakes, that’s human, but we fought really hard. I saw the dressing room afterwards – the boys felt the intensity of the game and were happy about the result.”

Did Klopp just announce his retirement?

When a reporter asked which of Sparta’s players Klopp would want at Liverpool, the boss replied: “I retire in the summer.”

This brought several chuckles in the press room before Klopp added: “Do you want me to take him on holiday or what?”

Make of that what you will, but we would suggest that it was just a slight case of mistranslation.

An update on Konate

“No we don’t know. Ibou said to me when he passed me in that moment, ‘I thought if I do another sprint, then it could be bad’,” revealed the boss.

“So he said ‘I should be fine’, but I don’t know.”

Also, the manager confirmed that Joe Gomez didn’t suffer an injury, saying: “Joe is fine. We took him off, he’s played a lot of games, so that was more or less rotation, precaution.”

Nunez had “quality coming out of his ears”

The manager had plenty of praise for Nunez, telling reporters:”He had absolutely more, more, more-than-OK first season, but obviously he had to adapt.

“That’s done, settled. In the middle of the team, wonderful guy, wonderful boy, and has quality. Quality coming out of his ears to be honest, but it’s like how strikers are.”

Nunez has now scored five goals in his last four matches, meaning he has 16 goals in all competitions this season – more than his whole total from last year.

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