On Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak building a connection…
The more they play together, the more they will connect. I think that’s what you saw in the second half already a little bit from the start but especially after I had to take [Ibrahima] Konate off because he felt his quad, when Ryan [Gravenberch] started to play in that position, we were able to get our attackers much more in promising situations much more than in the first half. For me it wasn’t the disconnection or the time we need for the forwards to do better. I think the first half was mainly that we had to be better in build-up and that’s what we did more and more in the second half, and that’s why we created also so many good moments, chances and moments that we could have created much more.
On how close he is to building this team in his ‘ideal image’…
I think you are never close to your ideal. You have to work really hard to reach a certain level and then it’s very hard in football because you also play against very good teams to keep that level going and what I mean with that is consistency. But it is clear we had our changes in the summer, players came in in different moments. Last week there’s hardly been any training time and still we need to try to bring these players in. If the result would have been better today with a draw or a win – which was both possible, I don’t say we deserved it, a draw we definitely deserved – then we would have had a great start to the season if you take into account everything what happened in the summer at Liverpool.
On rotating at centre-back…
How you can do this, that’s not so easy to put someone else in. That’s the way to rotate but if I rotate against Galatasaray, people complain that I rotate. So yeah, it is a risk. We were just talking about Konate, he’s playing three games now in seven or eight days with a four-and-a-half-hour flight up and down. That’s true. But that is the balance you need to find playing a tough game against Palace that play only long balls and every ball, every corner kick is dangerous, so you need long and strong defenders. And I think if you play Chelsea away, you also need two centre-backs. But when we were 1-0 down, I took the risk, if you want to call it like this, to play with a midfielder as a centre-back.
On Salah and whether the team is ‘missing his cutting edge’…
That’s then interesting: did he create today so much because he didn’t play during the week or did he miss the chances because he missed a bit of sharpness that he could have had if he would have played against Galatasaray? We will never know. What I like is that we brought him many times in the position he would like to be in and I would like him to be in, because he’s shown in his career and since I’m here that in those positions he can score goals. And I think today he had many opportunities to do what he’s done so often. But he is a human being and it’s not like every chance he gets is always a goal – we feel sometimes it is because of what he’s done last season and so many times. But he can also have a game where he has chances and a lot of times in promising positions and doesn’t have a goal or an assist.
