Liverpool v Chelsea: Andoni Iraola’s pre-match press conference in full

Andoni Iraola has hinted at changes to his Liverpool side for Wednesday’s Carabao Cup fourth-round tie with Chelsea, but insists the aim is to go through.

The Reds welcome the Blues to Anfield on Wednesday 28 October (8pm kick-off). Liverpool reached this stage with a 3-1 win over Tottenham in the previous round, when Iraola rotated heavily. Chelsea have beaten Luton and Leeds to get here.

With Arsenal next up at the weekend, and Champions League commitments in the mix, Iraola was asked whether he would take a similar approach to the Spurs game or go with more regular starters because of the opposition and the prospect of a first trophy.

Just wanted to check first of all on Florian’s ankle injury. How is that? And is there any update on when Dominik Szoboszlai and Victor will be available again?

I don’t think I can help you a lot. We still have to wait. We train later and we want to win this last day. He was quite fine. I think Florian, I’m quite optimistic that he will be available. With Dom and Victor, I’m not so sure. I don’t want to say no, but I think it’s going to be more difficult than Florian.

Selection-wise, are you thinking you have to go similar to what you did against Spurs, particularly with Arsenal at the weekend? Or does the fact that it’s Chelsea at this stage of the competition, and that you’ll want to try and deliver a trophy in your first season, change the thinking, so you might go with more regular starters?

A: No, I think there will definitely be changes, but we want to win the game. We want to be competitive. We need to see how the legs are. We’re not just in the Carabao Cup, also in the Champions League, so we’re trying to make some changes from game to game because I think it’s almost mandatory. We want to be in the next round. We’ve been unlucky in the draw, we’re playing Chelsea, and they’ve been unlucky also, but we want to be in the draw again, and that only happens if you win.

Can you put into context how important it is to deliver a trophy in your first season?

A: I think every competition is an opportunity, especially when you are the coach of Liverpool, and you have to take it like this. I would love to win tomorrow and have the chance to get further in the competition. But I know we have to play very well. We have to beat a very good team, and it’s a team that doesn’t play in Europe, so for them this competition is also very important. It’s not going to be easy.

A chance to beat another old friend before seeing another old friend at the weekend?

Yes. I’m lucky because I have a lot of friends in front of me. They are good coaches. As happened last week, after the game, whatever happens, we will have a moment to at least have five minutes to chat with each other.

You’ve won the last four games and scored 14 goals, but you’ve had to rotate here and there with injuries and different competitions. How reassured and pleased are you that you’ve been able to do that and still get the results?

I think it’s not that we have a lot of options. We need to rotate. Every top team that plays every three days needs to rotate. Sometimes the rotations are forced because you don’t have players available, which is more difficult for me. Sometimes it’s because for different games we have different demands and we have to go different tactically. But I’m happy because I see the team, everyone is involved. When we’ve needed to use someone who was not playing, for 10 minutes, they have been there and helped us. The more players we have in a good place, the easier my selection will be. Even if it’s hard in terms of leaving players out, I prefer those problems to not having the players ready.

One player who’s been coming back, and who scored for the Under-21s the other day, is Jayden Danns. He’s been on the bench a couple of times after his long injury absence. What have you made of him, and can he give you some different options now?

With Jayden, the problem until now this season has been availability. He got injured just before starting pre-season. I was here with the Under-21s, then he had some setbacks and has been in and out, and I think he’s now building some good minutes. He scored the other day and he’s in a good place. He’s been with us mostly in the European games, and I hope he continues progressing and pushes to fight for minutes.

Playing three games a week was one of the challenges you had to adapt to when you came here. Have you had to make compromises in what you wanted to do in those weeks with games?

It’s the same for everyone. You don’t have time. Chelsea doesn’t have time. Arsenal will not have time. It makes a big difference if you have one more day or one less day. For example, against Brighton, I think we were lucky. Even if Brighton rotated the whole team and didn’t use the same players at the end, you cannot have the training specifically for that game, so everything has to be done on video in one or two days. Now it’s the opposite. Against Chelsea, Arsenal and Palace, we’ll definitely have some games where we have less time to rest than the opposition, but you have to adapt. Sometimes it’s in your benefit, sometimes it goes against you, like this week. It’s a matter of adaptation and you cannot overthink. You analyse straight away what happened, but in an hour you see the next game, and it works like this, and you have to be ready for it.

There’s been some talk after the Brighton game about how Brighton had so much more possession than your side, and it was similar against Villa. From the fourth goal to the end of the game, in the last 20 minutes, they had almost twice as much possession as you, but it still felt like your team was in control. Do you feel that when you’ve got a lead, it’s possible to be in control without having the ball? Is that something that’s going to happen a lot more in football at the moment?

I’ve always said that who controls the game is who controls the chances. It’s not who has the ball. Against Brighton, for example, they had the ball more than us, but the ball was spent in their half more than in ours. I was really pleased with the performance. What we can improve is that we had a good spell in the last 10 minutes where we controlled much better, but we had a moment in the second half where we were conceding too much territory. We were defending well but conceding too much territory. Overall I would like to play the whole game like we played the first 30 or 35 minutes. That’s our goal long term, but I understand that normally you don’t get there. You can extend it, you can have your moments, but I would love to keep this level for all the games. During 90 minutes you will have moments where you have to stay more compact and play differently, and we should be able to differentiate and control the games like this. The other day I finished quite pleased. The same against Villa: I felt we had spells where they were controlling us, especially in the first half. But the other day, with the ball or without it, I felt the team was more or less in control of the situation.

Do you think they’re getting more used to your ideas now? And does winning in a slightly different way give you more confidence about the future?

The more time we stay together, the more experiences we have together, the more comebacks, the more sometimes losses, the better you know each other and the easier it is to have references and evolve. We want to do this process while we win games, and that’s the secret. Now every game is a challenge. Everything is costing us, but we have to keep going.

It’s six and seven goals now for Alex. It feels like the connections he’s starting to build on the pitch are getting stronger, with Bradley setting him up for the last two goals. Do you see him building those relationships with his teammates?

I think Alex has one thing: he feels the trust of everyone. Everyone trusts that if we put him in good positions, he’s going to score. But I always tell Alex it’s not just “you do the things and I will score”. You have to help us so we can give you the chances. You have to give us something so we can give you back. I think he understands that necessity and that relationship, and I hope he can continue at the same level.

Going back to the subject of you and Chavi, you’ve known each other a long time, back at Antiguoko, is that right? Can you talk about your relationship, when you first met him, and what your impressions were?

I think we’ve done maybe 25 interviews already talking about our relationship, and I can talk again, but everyone knows now that we were close friends. We grew up together. We played in the same team. We played against each other as footballers. We played together in the national team in Spain. But now he’s the opposition and we want to beat him, and he will do the same with us. After the game we can talk. I said the other day with Ino, and it’s the same with Shabi: once you’re playing against each other, the relationship is not good, because you stop talking to the other, out of a kind of respect. But he’s a very, very good friend and I wish him all the best, definitely.

On Sunday, your reaction at the end of the game, when you walked in front of the Kop, was the most enthusiastic you’ve been. Do you have to gain confidence to be Liverpool manager, because so much has happened in the first few months? You’re getting players in and getting yourself sorted out, but do you finally feel like you’re in the role now?

It’s not about gaining confidence. I said it since the first day: you have to earn the right to belong. You only get that with good performances and with wins, and it will take time. But I’m glad, because I felt the other day that the supporters helped us a lot and were enjoying it the same way we were. The players had a very likeable performance, in the sense that they gave everything. We were blocking everything, tackling, fighting, winning duels, making the runs in behind. Those are the things we want to see. Everyone wants to see that, and I enjoyed it the other day.

So you feel you’ve started to?

Start, yes. I would say start. We need more wins. We need more performances. We need more time.

When you’re playing a team with a disciplinary problem like Chelsea, does that come into your thinking and strategy? Do you think “we can wind these up, we can provoke them”?

No. You’re saying they have this problem, but it’s not going to be in our team meeting. We weren’t saying anything.

On what you said about winning the duels and the tackles and the commitment, have you spoken to the group specifically about playing with a bit more of a physical edge? Have you sat down in a meeting and said that’s what you want your team to look like?

Nowadays it’s almost mandatory in the Premier League, because all the teams are quite aggressive. They’re not just sitting in a block and waiting for you. That happens sometimes in certain games, but not a lot, and definitely not against teams like Brighton, Villa or Chelsea. They want to press, you want to press, and there are not going to be a lot of spaces in the middle. Whoever wins the duel will probably have spaces at the back to attack and create chances. So the duel, and the second ball arriving a little bit earlier, is key. Nothing in the middle of the pitch is going to be “you go against the keeper, we go against the keeper”. So those duels are mandatory.

One of the weaknesses, or difficulties, the team had last season was in duels and second balls. Is that something you identified since you came in?

I will not talk about last season. I think that past season Liverpool was a very good team also.