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In his presser ahead of the Premier League clash against Manchester United, Jurgen Klopp stressed on the importance of the game for Liverpool’s hopes of playing in Europe next season.
On Liverpool’s preparation to face their northwestern rivals:
“Tomorrow they have second day recovery and then they play again on Sunday. There’s not much they can change with training but I don’t think there’s much they would want to change. Last night they were good.”
On the importance of the game for Liverpool’s Champions League hopes next season:
“More than 100%. Even then if the others win nothing changes for us. Without winning games we won’t be in any European place.”
“Playing CL is massive for the club financially. If we don’t make that it’s not good. But I don’t think it will change a lot (in terms of the summer) as football was already in a difficult situation before.”
On the possibility of Virgil Van Dijk’s return:
“I don’t have enough English words to describe the same thing more often. Yes, he is running - Hendo is running, Joe is running, Joel 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.”
When asked about any fresh injury concerns ahead of the weekend game:
“No, no. All the same in this moment.”
On the social media boycott against racism online:
“We’ve had cases where players faced some weird things on social media. I had some talks with the boys. The world of a football player is pretty public. I support the boycott and I am happy that together we make a sign because things have to change. With as much power as we have as a unit we should try to use this moment and I really hope it has an impact.”