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Ahead of his first Premier League match at Anfield, Jurgen Klopp is still very much enjoying his honeymoon period as new Liverpool manager.

As he meets the reporters from the Sunday newspapers there is plenty of laughter from the German and his smile is genuine rather than a forced grin.

The former Borussia Dortmund coach is now employed in a city where everyone appears to be either a comedian, football fanatic – or often both.

While he's mastering the humour element, how he copes on the footballing front will ultimately decide his fate but behind the exterior of the now famously 'ordinary' guy, there is a steelier side to Klopp when it comes to being a leader of men on the touchline.

Asked whether he considers himself a hard man, Klopp pauses for thought to compose himself as he tends to do with most of his questions and offers the following reply: “I have to make decisions in my job very often. Most of the time it is for one player good, for one player not so good. It's not a problem for me.

“If you are full of motivation as a player, if you are full of concentration, full of readiness and passion as a player, I'm not hard. I am open arms and give you a last kick, maybe!

“If you are not, of course (I am hard), but only because to work with players they don't understand the professional part of this life, it is a little bit of a waste of time.”

I'll be your friend - but not your best friend

Klopp recognises that he will judge each individual case on its merits when it comes to handling his players.

He said: “If they are very young, I can help of course, I can talk about this, give you one chance, two chances, three, five (chances).

“If you are of another age and some other managers have tried it before, then it's a waste of time.

“I love to be something like a friend of the player, but not their best friend because a best friend understands everything.

“I try to understand why the players do things they do so I am interested in their life, private and so on, not because I want to know all these things, but because I think it's important I know them.”

In the spotlight

Two games into his Reds reign, Klopp is under no illusions about the size of the task at hand after a 0-0 draw at Tottenham and 1-1 draw at home to a Rubin Kazan side reduced to 10 men for almost an hour.

While he acknowledges that like many new managers he has inherited a situation that is far from ideal, Klopp remains content that his team make mistakes on their way to improving for the future.

He said: “Football in this case is like normal life, if things don’t work you have to try it again, try it again, try it again….

“It’s always to try it more often than before and then you get more confidence.

“The problem is if you miss you are fully on the spot. If you miss a big chance, all the lights switch off and the light on you is on.

“That is part of the problem. But my players are experienced enough to handle experiences like this.”

Klopp added: “The common situation is something you see, everyone is waiting for this one moment when everything changes.

“That is what I wanted to say when we spoke about expectations. Expectations are perfect and we all need them but we have to be prepared for work, then we can achieve them.

“It’s not only one moment. If you are not prepared, you change the situation for one moment, then the next moment it was the same as before.

“That is what we need. Together to get a new confidence and new kind of spirit to stay in the race because at this moment I see a hard working team and in many situations a team with inspiration but not over the whole 90 minutes.

“That is what we have to try to do, to get this time longer. Maybe 85 minutes a game or something like this, then it will be better.”

It's good to talk

Although Klopp has unnecessarily apologised for his use of English on more than one occasion already, you suspect that he is not the kind of individual to prevent his message getting across to Liverpool's players with any communications barrier.

When questioned on how he intends to improve the members of his squad, Klopp is clear about the solution that needs to be implemented.

He said: “(By) Talking. Talking to the players, showing them the situations and what we did well and what we did wrong.

“It’s very rare that we talk about the player when we analyse the game. It’s only about the position and how he should work on this position as the information is for all.

“That is how development works, to give them solutions for different situations. That is what we are doing.

“Talking about it. It is a problem that we don’t have too much time. Now I watch the game from Thursday and decide if we have to talk about the game or ignore the details if they are not so important for Southampton. It’s a little bit like juggling.

“Training is very important but not always possible for all teams in our situation so we don’t have to think about this.

“We can train but then we have to do the right things, we can do tactical things and give them other things.”

Picking up the lingo

Klopp believes that he has already witnessed a change in his players after his first match at White Hart Lane.

If his Reds team are as quick learners as he is then Klopp will be ok because the Stuttgart native has already adopted the English football habit of adding a letter y to the end of players' names.

He said: “I saw changes in the game on Thursday and the biggest difference from Tottenham was that at Spurs I only saw our ‘half’ midfielders Emre and Milly (James Milner) always going to the wing so we closed the space for Clyney (Nathaniel Clyne) and Alberto (Moreno).

“We spoke about this and on Thursday Clyney and Alberto were going to the wing and Milly and Alberto were in the ‘half’ space. So we have to do this better. That is all.

“Give information. They listen to what I say. But it is a little bit too much of listening and trying to do the right thing.

“I only try to give information to make the base a little better and not to change the base. That is very important and that is where we find ourselves getting better and better.”