Actually ho, for me, this season and last season same je, keeping possession here and there without much penetration.    The only difference is salah keep producing magic over and over again to carry the team, thats why 3 points keep rolling in.

Then this season, maybe due to fatigue, the players didnt press as much already, so we are at bigger risk of conceding + no salah magic = shitty situation now.

I think for every player in my mind can start and Mo is an exceptional player for us. He always in my mind to either start or to come [off the bench].

"The chatter, yes [I understand it] because he deserves that, he has been so influential for me and six or seven years. It's completely normal people talk about it when he isn't [playing]."

For me that says how good the PL is this season, it gets better every year. For obvious reasons because everyone has so much money. It's definitely our first aim to come back to the top four because we are not happy with the position we are in at the moment."

“Every player has a possibility to start,” he claimed. “But we have many options to start in his position as I said so many times before.

“But he is indeed having his impact coming off the bench a few times.

“Normally you bring a striker in to score a goal, but he in this situation kept on running in a moment where a player could also feel ‘hmm, I don’t think I can do a lot anymore, because he’s going to go one vs. one’.

“So it tells you also the mentality he has not to concede, and that’s a good thing because that’s what not only defenders should have, that’s also what attackers should have.”

No [goal] but if you only have confidence from goals that is the wrong thing. You can see his confidence from how often he wants the ball and how often they give him it. So he has a lot of confidence but it's also clear he came back with an injury from Germany, so I am happy he can play so many minutes. He has done well. Not surprised he was involved in the goal against Sunderland, he was one of the ones who kept constantly trying and was creative."

“Joe Gomez got a knock in the West Ham game but was still able to start,” he said at his pre-match press conference. “He couldn’t make the full 90 minutes but I think he will be able to train again today.

“Yesterday was a recovery day for most of them, today we will train again and let’s see where they are.

“Conor Bradley has trained this week so I expect him to train today and then he is available to be in the squad tomorrow.”

“That’s an interesting way of looking at it,” he told journalist Mo Stewart, when asked in his pre-Leeds press conference whether Gakpo was suffering from having less competition for a starting spot.

“Because you can also look at it in a way if a player plays a lot, this gives him consistency, self-confidence.

“Usually if I talk to players that I don’t play every single time mostly their answer is ‘yeah, but I need to play every single minute, that gives me more confidence and I can bring the most out of myself’.

“Now you say the opposite.

“The reason why I haven’t tried Hugo a lot of times off the left is an obvious one: because of the Alexander Isak situation, that he’s either been not available or not been available to start every single game.

“And Rio has had his minutes, but I think for a 17-year-old he’s already had much more minutes than any other 17-year-old at any other club in the Premier League. So that’s positive for him.

“I don’t think Cody suffers from the fact that he doesn’t have competition, because there are players that can play in his position.

“Usually, like I just said, players prefer to have a situation where they have the confidence and the understanding that they might play many minutes.”

“I think he is not the only one, the only number nine that suffers in some games from not getting as many chances,” he said.

“I watched the second half of Leeds against City and I watched the whole game against Chelsea and it is not like, at this level, the No.9 is involved in eight, nine, 10 chances every single half.

“But it is obvious and clear to me we, as a team, want to bring him more often into threatening situations.

“Before we went to only one goal conceded in two games, we had a lot of chances in the last two games as a result because we were a little bit more compact and maybe took a little less risks.

“We haven't been able to create that many chances as we did before so it’s definitely one of the things on my list of things to improve, getting our number nine more involved in the game, let alone more involved in the final third.

“It’s not ideal for me [to have average 14 touches per game]. But he had 22 for Newcastle. In this league, strikers don't touch the ball that much.

“But the few times they do touch it, it’s quite nice if they finish it off. I have no clue what the stats of Haaland are but I wouldn’t be surprised if he maybe doesn’t touch it 100 times a game. But he does score a lot.

“It is more important for them to touch the ball in the right time than to touch it so many times. We have to make sure, because this is a complete difference between Haaland and Alex, that Haaland touches it a lot more in moments where it matters.

“There we have to improve, that’s clear and obvious. We and he as well.”

“No, I haven’t had contact with him a lot.

“I think only once or twice, and that was before and after he played Feyenoord away. But that had more to do with he played against a former club of mine.

“So no, I haven’t spoken to him.

“I am aware of his situation, of course. I knew how difficult it already was for him over here, so I think I know how he feels in this moment.

“But yeah, you should ask those questions at Villa and not over here when it’s about his playing time over there.”