Reaction from Jurgen Klopp
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has been happy with his side’s commitment as he continues to rotate the line-up, but the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez have all had longer terms this time.
“We were much more compact today. We still played really good football – we did that against United too. We scored twice, which we didn’t manage to do. That was a clear step in the right direction and I’m very happy about that,” said Klopp.
“It’s our second game and we have to work a lot over the next four weeks, I would say particularly to prepare for the rest of the season. There are already Premier League games, but we have to use the time anyway because from mid-September we won’t have time to train because we’ll only be playing every three days.”
“That’s why it’s so important that we get through things like this; They were fine with the fact that some players had 45 minutes, others 30 minutes. Maybe they could have played a bit longer, but I really wanted to give the young guys the opportunity to play in this incredible atmosphere because they do everything with us, they are with us all the time and then in the moment like here, where it is really fun to play football, would we leave them out? I didn’t want it, that’s why they came. So far, so ok.”
Injury updates
There are some injury concerns among key players, however, as Diogo Jota, Joe Gomez and Alisson all missed the Palace win, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain escaped with an injury in the first half.
“Diogo is a problem. It’s muscle again at Diogo,” Klopp told LFC TV in Singapore. “Joe, no. Joe is just a precaution and not worth taking any chances. He’s been really good preseason so far; He felt a little bit here and there, so we said, ‘Okay, then he’s out.’ Ali isn’t cool either; It won’t take too long, but every day that Ali isn’t involved is already too long, to be honest.”
After the game, Klopp added the following update.
“Of course it’s very disappointing for us because Oxlade has been training very well since the start of the pre-season,” said Klopp. “It’s obviously happened with Ox in the past when it gets more intense and something can happen. Well, that’s just a muscle thing and that’s okay. We’ve had worse situations, so I’m okay with that. I don’t know exactly how long it will be, but he comes back and then everything is fine. He’s obviously a top-class player and can help us.”
“Ali, he feels a muscle, stomach. It’s nothing serious, but we’re preparing for a whole season again. But he can’t train like he used to, so he shouldn’t be playing at the moment. Not normal goalkeeper training, but he has pre-season training so he doesn’t lose any time,” said Klopp. “But yeah, things like that happen. The guys have to travel and train a lot and you never really know. It’s just small things, nothing serious, but we have to be careful because the rest of the season is much longer than the start.”
Troubles with Jota and Alisson are a bit of a concern for Liverpool and Klopp will be keen to wrap his stars in cotton wool in the coming weeks as they prepare for another title boost in both the Premier League and UEFA Champions League in 2022-23 .
Comments are closed.