Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp on Trent Alexander Arnold's Manchester City criticism ahead of their Premier League clash with the title rivals
AXA training centre, Liverpool, UK
AXA training centre, Liverpool, UK
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00:00 Obviously a lot in the build-up to this has been made of what Trent Alexander-Arnold had to say,
00:04 I just wonder what's your take on what's been said?
00:07 I had a few people who spoke to me about it and told me what I should say and what I'm not saying,
00:22 I said, "Baby, come on, you have to wait until I answer."
00:25 LAUGHTER
00:28 If you are...
00:30 Wait. I'm not sure how often in this club we have to say that you know
00:37 how much we respect the opponent, in this case our city,
00:41 how often we have to say, and mean it, "Pep is the best manager in the world."
00:45 I have no problem, I have a really good life with being not even close to that,
00:50 it's absolutely fine, believe it.
00:52 They are incredible players, and at the moment they have probably the best number nine,
00:58 Haaland, scores like he wants.
01:01 Kevin De Bruyne will go down in history, there will be in the end a discussion,
01:05 "Was it Steven Gerrard still or is it Kevin De Bruyne?"
01:08 Imagine getting in this conversation.
01:11 They have so many... Phil Foden, best English player at the moment probably,
01:17 and all these kind of things, and we all respect that, and Trent respects that.
01:21 But he's born in Liverpool, he stood on the bins before he played for the club,
01:25 he played for all youth teams, what would you think in that situation?
01:30 One of our slogans, which I love, is "This means more."
01:35 And it means more to us. We have no clue exactly what it means to other people,
01:40 but what happens here means more to us.
01:44 We had, two years ago, a parade after winning the League Cup and FA Cup,
01:52 losing the Champions League final the night before, losing the league for a point,
01:56 tell me a city where you have a parade and it looks like we won all these trophies
02:01 without having them.
02:02 The club is special to us, if it's not special to other people, we cannot change that.
02:08 But when we feel it like that, why shouldn't we be allowed to say it?
02:13 And you can start discussing, honestly.
02:16 I used words I should not use, it's live here so I cannot use them,
02:21 but I'm not really interested.
02:24 It's just how he feels and how we feel, and I have absolutely no problem with that.
02:31 I'm pretty sure - I didn't read it, I just got told what you will ask me -
02:38 I'm pretty sure he told his respect as well.
02:42 In the last decade, Man City is the most successful football club in England,
02:46 and maybe in Europe, and they could have won the Champions League more often,
02:49 for some reason they didn't, but in England it's ridiculous the record they have.
02:53 Ridiculous.
02:55 And it means a lot to their people, I'm sure, but for us,
03:01 maybe it's just for the fact that we didn't win that many, it's possible as well.
03:06 We are not in a situation of winning five league titles in a row
03:11 and then realising number five was better, we never had that situation,
03:16 so we don't know 100 per cent, that's clear, but that's it.
03:21 So, you love these kind of interviews where somebody says what he thinks
03:28 and then the whole world tells you, "That's not right, what you think."
03:33 As long as these kind of things, it's still allowed that we think what we want.
03:38 There are other people out there who think much worse things,
03:42 and we should talk more about that, how wrong that is,
03:47 but nothing wrong with what Trent said, to be honest, from my point of view.