Striker feels like a lost Soul as move to Thistle drags on
promised Liverpool won’t stick the boot in tonight.
He said: “Neymar doesn’t have to worry. We don’t go for him, we play football. We want to win the ball and we don’t try to act in these kind of ways.
“We try to avoid passes to him, we try to avoid challenges and all that stuff. I am not sure if it’s possible to avoid his quality.
“He got rested at the weekend so he will be 100 per cent fresh for this. He is not injured any more so we will see the full package of Neymar, the football package. We have to cope with that and we will try.
“Players are really going for him and he wants to protect himself.
“If an opponent gets a yellow card he is much closer to a red so I see it from that perspective. It’s smart that he saves himself.”
Liverpool reached the Champions League Final last season, taking plenty of plaudits for their progress and attacking style of play.
But Klopp is a winner and won’t be happy until he lifts the trophy above his head.
The German said: “We are in the place where we want to be without being satisfied with anything. It’s good but we want better for the club and the people.
“We are a challenger again for pretty much everything. I don’t think there is any game in the world where you would say beforehand, ‘No chance Liverpool,’ which is good.
“There was no damage from the defeat in the Final to Real Madrid. Absolutely not. We got a lot of respect because of the way we played last season.
“Everyone who saw the Final against Madrid saw we could have won it against a side in a completely different moment.
“They see the games we played. They saw City, they saw Rome, they saw Porto. There was a lot of respect.
“That is important for the club and the players.” BY LIAM BRYCE THE Souleymane Coulibaly transfer saga is set to rumble on as the SFA joined Partick Thistle’s fight to grant the playmaker international clearance.
The former Kilmarnock star has been left in limbo since joining the Jags in August, unable to play for Alan Archibald’s side.
The Firhill club revealed the Egyptian governing body had waited 14 days to refuse a request for an International Transfer Certificate (ITC) – despite being obligated to reply within seven.
The SFA have now asked FIFA to reject the refusal on those grounds.
The ITC would have been granted automatically after 15 days and Coulibaly is said to have been left frustrated by this setback.
The situation stems from Coulibaly being ordered to pay former club Ah-Ahly £1million after walking out on them in 2017.
A Jags statement said: “The Egyptian Football Association has confirmed it has refused to grant an ITC for Coulibaly’s move to Partick Thistle.
“Despite being obliged to reply within seven days relative to a request for an ITC, the Egyptian FA has waited until the 14th day to refuse the request. The SFA has now asked FIFA to reject the refusal.
“Subsequently the Egyptian FA has been given until Friday to provide additional information requested by the world governing body.
“Given the ITC would’ve been granted automatically after 15 days if the Egyptian FA had not responded, Souleymane is once again frustrated by the process.”