Jurgen Klopp has been told that he’s used Fabio Carvalho incorrectly in recent weeks by Peterborough chairman Darragh MacAnthony.
The 20-year-old arrived from Fulham earlier this summer and started Liverpool’s 3-3 draw with Brighton last Saturday.
The decision to start the Portugal U21 international raised a few eyebrows and despite him showing glimpses of what he’s capable of, he was replaced by Luis Diaz at half time.
MacAnthony has questioned whether Klopp approached the game against the Seagulls with a hint of arrogance.
“He [Klopp] needs to take some of those players out the firing line,” MacAnthony said on The Hard Truth podcast (via talkSPORT).
“I’m watching on Saturday and I’m a Carvalho fan, he’s going to be a terrific player, but you’re playing Brighton. They are no mugs, they’re a good team.
“And you pick a front three of Carvalho, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah. On the bench Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez. £200 million worth of strikers on the bench.
“Did you arrogantly think that you were just going to roll over Brighton? You didn’t need to do that with Carvalho, don’t kill the kid. Take your time. Diaz should have been in, or Nunez has to be in.”
Carvalho actually showed confidence during the first half against Roberto De Zerbi’s side and was one of the very few Liverpool players that attempted to make things happen.
Although our first half showing was lacklustre, Brighton deserve credit for their performance and were well worth the point they earned.
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The Fulham Academy graduate scored his first goal for the club in the 9-0 rout last month before scoring an injury time winner against Newcastle a few days later.
It’s clear that the attacker has so much ability and under the guidance of our German tactician we can’t wait to watch him develop alongside his former Craven Cottage teammate Harvey Elliott.
We’d argue that Klopp has gone about the situation of embedding Carvalho into the team the right way – he’s earned minutes in all of our Premier League games so far but is yet to make his Champions League debut.
Our No. 28 may have struggled to make the impact he would’ve liked against the south coast outfit recently but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision to start him – he’s young and will learn from games like that.
We’ve got faith in Klopp to get the lads performing at their best again in the coming weeks and following our victory over Rangers on Tuesday, attention now turns to Sunday’s huge clash with Arsenal at the Emirates.