Liverpool's Jurgen Klopp had the air of Bill Shankly about him at first ...

If there is one word Jurgen Klopp has used above all others since arriving at Anfield, it is “dream”.

He is living it, he insists, and he wants his players and the Liverpool supporters to do the same. His aim, above all others, is to get his new club dreaming again.

Yet even before the German has had his first game in charge of the English club, he seems to already have walked straight into a nightmare.

Losing young defender Joe Gomez for the season was bad enough, but to hear within 24 hours that striker Danny Ings - the second young Englishman he had identified as the future foundation of his team – is also out for the remainder of the campaign was verging on the cursed.With Christian Benteke and Roberto Firmino also absent for at least another week, Klopp had cause to urge caution, get his excuses in before the fact.

Yet as he explained on Thursday, there is a reason he chose to describe himself as the “normal one”. He is not a man for extreme reactions... except during a game of course, when he can be explosive.

His working life has always been impressively pragmatic, a mantra always to concentrate on the positive and refuse to allow excuses to usher in failure even before the event.

There is something of the Shankly about him when he says, calmly, he has always preferred to concentrate on those who are available, rather than worry about the players who aren't.“As a manager, one of the things I learnt first you do not think about the players who are not available at this moment, because there is no chance to get lucky if you do this all of the time,” he explained with a smile.

“Football is a fantastic game, but it doesn't work without fault. Never in history is there football without fault. You must be prepared for problems. We need each other's help.

“If you are prepared for problems and are strong enough to handle it, then we can stay in the game. We have to open our chests, we have to run, fight, shoot, defend and attack together.

“For me, I’m interested in what they are able to do now, not what they did in the last week or two.”

Shankly was famous for refusing to speak to injured players, blanking them as though they didn't exist until they were fit and useful to him again.Klopp won't go that far – he offered assurances to Ings and Gomez he will be patient and wait for them to return – but he won't let this week's setbacks stop him dreaming.

In fact, far from reeling from the body-blows that would have many managers up against the ropes in the opening rounds, Klopp admitted his biggest problem has been to reign himself in, and not get too carried away with the excitement of his return to football.

Not only does he want the players and fans to dream, he is dreaming himself too, he revealed, almost giddy to be back in the game he lives and breathes, after four months watching from the outside.

“I’ve had a really good time in these four months - the holidays were the best of my life because they were the longest of my life,” he said with a smile.