Jurgen Klopp gave a very interesting press-conference today ahead of tomorrow night’s clash with PSG.
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The German praised PSG’s star player Neymar, who has often received criticism from opponents for his blatant diving.
Klopp though reckons the 26-year-old is hardly done by, in the most part, and that he has to go down easily to get fouls from consistently bad tackles.
“I don’t know exactly what you are talking about,” he told the Echo today, when asked about Neymar’s histrionics.
“I saw a few games at the World Cup when it looked like he made a bit more of the situation. That’s a completely normal reaction because players are really going for him. That’s the truth.
“He has to protect himself. If the opponent gets a yellow card he is closer to a red card. It is smart. We don’t go for him against us. We want to play football. We want to win the ball. We don’t try to act on these type of things.
“We try to avoid passes to him. It’s a big job. I don’t know if it’s possible to avoid his quality. I’m pretty sure it’s not.
“He’s an outstanding player. He was not fit at the World Cup. He tried to play for his country without being fit. I don’t think he’s a person who wants to act because if you do that you cannot play the football he plays.
“He got rested at the weekend so he’ll be 100% fresh. He won’t be injured. We’ll see the full package, the football package, and we have to cope with that.”
Neymar will start alongside Kylian Mbappe and Edinson Cavani up top for the French, in what’s one of the few front-lines in world football that can compete with ours.
Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ousmane Dembele isn’t bad, nor is Manchester City or Real Madrid’s, but we wouldn’t swap Mo, Sadio and Bobby for anyone!
Right now, we’d have our defence over PSG’s as well, while the likes of James Milner and Gini Wijnaldum are in the form of their lives in midfield.