Playing more together has been a bit harder than last season because of Alexander Isak, because of [Alexis] Mac Allister, because of Conor Bradley, that Dominik Szoboszlai has played on eight, on 10, on right full-back for the reasons I just said. But we are, in my opinion, too focused on this season, but the last part of last season had a lot of similarities with the start of this season – with one exception that [in] the second part of last season we scored seven set-pieces, which led to a lot of wins, and this season we’ve conceded four, I think.
So, we play tomorrow [against] Chelsea, I think they’ve scored more than 50 per cent of their goals from set-pieces. So, this is the new reality in the Premier League and we were doing this really well [in the] second part of last season. This season, we have had many chances from set-pieces as well – unfortunately we didn’t score yet.
On working harder on set-pieces or if it’s a case of needing more luck…
What I just said, we’ve been very close to scoring [from] set-pieces this season already. Ibou [Konate], a big chance against Galatasaray and a big chance against Palace. So, I’m very happy about the amount of chances we generate from set-pieces, but we haven’t scored yet and is that luck, bad luck? At this moment of time, I would say we are a bit unlucky. If it just keeps on going throughout the whole season, it might have to do with other things as well. But what I’m trying to say is, open-play goals [in] the second part of last season and the first part of last season is the main difference. I don’t think we do things different. I do see teams doing a lot of things different to us.
So, the first part of last season Jürgen [Klopp] gave me a lot of gifts but one of the gifts he also gave me was ending up third the year before and fifth the year before and him being so well known that a new manager came in and everybody thought, ‘Oh, let’s start to play against Liverpool’! And teams played in a completely different way in the first half of the season against us than they did when we were top of the league after half of the season and when we were top of the Champions League after the first part of the season. And I can see this going now into this part of this season. We have to find answers to that. Last season, one of the answers was a set-piece, like many teams unlock a low block with set-pieces. And this season we haven’t done that yet.
On Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong’s reaction to Dominik Szoboszlai being used at right-back…
I don’t think [they are frustrated] at the moment because Conor Bradley has been out with an injury in pre-season that brought him into the season with an injury. And Jeremie Frimpong the same, he has been out with an injury as well. I would be surprised if players are complaining that they don’t play if they are injured. That would be something new to me. Yes, they’ve come back from their injuries but, like Alexander Isak, we don’t believe it’s possible if you’ve been out for three or four weeks with an injury that you can play three games in a week. Because you’re not prepared for that. That’s why we had to adjust in that position with Dominik Szoboszlai, which he has done very, very, very well, except for the moment where we conceded the penalty maybe. But that is one moment in many minutes he’s played there.
