Claudio Ranieri has tasked William Troost-Ekong, Emmanuel Dennis and their Watford teammates as they prepare to host Liverpool in Saturday’s Premier League game.
Ranieri will take charge of his first game since he was hired last week to replace the sacked Xisco Munoz.
After that, Watford have a tough run of matches that has them facing Everton, Southampton, Arsenal, Manchester United, Leicester, Chelsea and champions Manchester City.
It leaves Ranieri facing the prospect of a slow start to life at Watford, but he is unmoved by that and has urged his players to fight.
“I maintain my spirit,” said the Italian. “Nobody can kill me, nobody. I maintain my spirit, my love, my life, because sport is fantastic.
“I have to start immediately. I have start to understand my players very quickly and we have to move very quickly, because I know there will be a bad moment. In that moment, with our fans together, we have to stay very close and continue to fight. It’s like a boxer: there are some moments you can punch and some moments you have to stay [tight].”
Ranieri is full of admiration for his opposite number tomorrow, Klopp, and even spent time watching him train when he was in charge of Borussia Dortmund.
“He is a very good manager, he has won everything and I am happy to meet him,” he said. “I watched his training sessions a long time ago when he was at Borussia Dortmund for one week. It will be a very good match. Of course, there are a lot of things we have to improve, but we can only see that after the match.”
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When the time is right to replace Rohr, Ranieri is one of the few coaches I would love to have at the helm. Talk about man management, experience and tactical nous. Ranieri is the total package.
He will not tolerate being owed salary though. Hmmm. I guess that brings me right back to reality!