The Dutchman spoke to the media at the AXA Training Centre on the eve of his side’s trip to Elland Road in the Premier League.
See a round-up from the briefing below…
On Mohamed Salah coming on at half-time against Sunderland and his potential return to the starting line-up…
Every player is in my mind to start a game of football because we have so many good players. Mo has been such an exceptional player for us. He’s always in my mind to start or to come in.
On facing Leeds and the problems they can cause…
Yesterday I looked at Leeds v Chelsea and I thought I saw a Liverpool game; Chelsea conceding a set-piece and for the third goal making a big, big error where they conceded a goal from. [It was] very difficult for them. Either Leeds went very aggressive to one-v-one or they went to a low block and it was really hard to create chances. It’s not only difficult for us, that playing style, it’s difficult for many teams – including us.
So what we expect is what we’ve seen in the second half against [Manchester] City when they were 2-0 down, coming back to 2-2. Eventually [Phil] Foden made the difference with a moment of magic for City and against City they were really strong and played a very good game. They were really aggressive and had a lot of long balls as well from their goalkeeper. We know what to expect but what to expect is probably what we’ve faced [in] all of the games with maybe the exception of two.
On Florian Wirtz’s confidence levels…
If you can only have confidence if you score goals, that would be the wrong thing. I think you can see where his confidence is at if you look at the last two games – how many times he wants the ball and how many times his teammates play him the ball. That is something that tells me how much confidence he has at the moment.
It’s also that he came back with an injury [from] Germany, so I’m already very happy that he is able to play so many minutes in these first two games after he came back from an injury. But he’s done well. Like I said, I wasn’t surprised that he was involved in the goal scored against Sunderland, because he was one of the players – not the only one – who kept constantly trying and was creative.
