Jurgen Klopp had to convince Jordan Henderson not to come back to Melwood early following his exploits at the World Cup.
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Liverpool’s skipper was one of Gareth Southgate’s best players out in Russia, finally collecting the international recognition his performances have actually warranted for a long time.
But his physical exploits were huge, especially after a long campaign with Liverpool – and Klopp is right to enforce some time off for the midfielder.
What’s more, Klopp’s said he doesn’t think he’ll use any of our World Cup semi-finalists against West Ham on Premier League Opening Day – if he can help it.
“It was a hard fight to convince Jordan that he needed a holiday,” Klopp told the Guardian. “I knew that would happen. He feels like he needs training every day, a bit like Millie [James Milner]. On the phone I said: ‘That’s crazy.’ Jordan needs a holiday so that means 5 August he will be back. Dejan played a day later and had a party in Croatia so he will be back on 6 August. That would mean five days of training after three weeks of holiday. I hope we are in a situation where we don’t need to think about using these two against West Ham.”
Without Hendo, Trent or Lovren, we can see Liverpool lining up like this on August 12: Alisson; Clyne, Robertson, van Dijk, Matip; Fabinho, Keita, Lallana, Mane, Salah, Firmino.