Press conference round-up: Liverpool

On signing Kyle Walker-Peters…

“He’s good for Southampton because he’s young, quick and technically good. I think his hard disk has a lot of space to put something on, so I think he can learn a lot.

“He will come to us and give 100 per cent and the whole package is something we can develop and that is our goal.”

On facing Liverpool...

“I think everybody expects us to lose. Many teams have tried to win there in the last year, but all the away games were lost from the away teams.

“It would be normal that we lose but this season is everything but normal for us.

“I don’t expect a normal game from our perspective at the weekend. We have a few problems with injuries, but the squad is concentrated on working.

“We know about the difficulty of this challenge, but we will take the challenge because if you want to go to the next level in your development, like we did away to Leicester and Chelsea, we have to see how far we are and how we compete against a top team.”

On being up for the challenge...

“For sure, otherwise we wouldn’t go there.

“If we don’t dream about it, then we may as well stay at home.”

On the key to winning...

“Every team can lose games and also Liverpool had a few tight games but at the end they are always the winning team.

“If we want to take something we must be mentally better than them, which isn’t so easy, and better tactically than them. They are a very, very organised and committed team.

“This is exactly what we want to have.”

On team news...

"Cédric is out and Stuart [Armstrong] is injured and cannot train at the moment. It’ll take two to three weeks, I think, until he’s back in the team. It’s not the worst but he has a little bit of a problem with his hip muscles so he is out.

"The rest look good. Yan Valery is back in training since the beginning of the week and Jannik Vestergaard is back from his concussion and also training. Everyone is fit."