Jurgen Klopp has spoken out about his dislike for international friendlies which mean some of our star players will travel to the other side of the world for a game.
The boss remarks on how the fixtures aren’t a qualification matches or competitive games, and almost calls them pointless – a point I’d agree with, given the timing of the fixtures.
Brazil face Nigeria on the 13th of October which will see us lose Fabinho and Bobby Firmino around that time, and then they’re expected to adjust to time differences and get ready for Liverpool to play Manchester United just seven days after featuring for their national side.
The boss doesn’t like that he has no control of the situation. “Some of us fly to Singapore where Brazil play Senegal in a friendly,” Klopp is quoted as saying by the Liverpool Echo.
“That’s another thing now friendlies on the other side of the world. We have no influence on it.
“We just got the message that Brazil will play Senegal in Singapore. And you think ‘OK, that’s obviously not a qualifier for any cup and stuff like this.’ We always talk about solutions but we have no influence on the problem.
“We only get the problems and then we try to find solutions for it. That’s it. So for the players it stays intense. We have to see. We work with what we have pretty much as often as we can and we do as much as we can. So far it works out.
“The good thing is that we are not the only one. The more international players you have the more you feel these problems obviously. It is exactly the same for most of the teams.
“Players fly all around the world and then comeback and we collect the bones and go again. So that is how it is.”
It certainly isn’t ideal that our star players are going to be so busy in the build up to the fixture against our biggest rivals, but I’d back the lads to bounce back pretty quickly.
They’ll surely be back in Liverpool 5-6 days before we face United – I think that’s more than enough time for professional athlete to ready themselves.