Jurgen Klopp has a number of injury issues to contend with at the moment.
Although Alisson Becker returned to the starting XI for yesterday’s win against Crystal Palace having missed three games with a hamstring injury, the likes of Andy Robertson, Joel Matip, Alexis Mac Allister and Diogo Jota all remain sidelined with their own respective issues.
It was the latter who Klopp admitted would’ve been ‘super helpful’ at Selhurst Park when asked about the importance of having a squad full of quality and options to enter the fray from the bench.
“They’re very similar situations,” responded the Liverpool manager (as quoted by Rousing The Kop). “I don’t know exactly which was which season, but let me say we started with Fabinho, Henderson and Wijnaldum and then we had Milner and then Lallana the year before.
“Then we had Oxlade-Chamberlain and then we had Naby Keita and we had up front Shaqiri, Origi and Minamino; that’s what you need to make a difference.
“Now we have the quality again so that’s how it is. We would’ve had today if he wouldn’t have been injured Diogo Jota, which would’ve been super-helpful. That’s how it is. The boys have quality. That’s why they show it. It’s more the mindset. The bad thing about the amount of games we play is that it’s really tiring. It’s just like that.”
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Klopp’s changes paid off in south London yesterday with half time substitute Joe Gomez performing superbly at right back during the second half and late substitute Harvey Elliott snatching all three points for the Merseysiders with his brilliant strike in injury time.
Despite the positive result. we are somewhat feeling the effect of our growing injury list and with the games continuing to come thick and fast we’ll do well to not add to it.
With top spot in our Europa League group already confirmed we’re expecting our German tactician to make a significant number of changes for our trip to Belgium to face Royale Union Saint-Gilloise on Thursday.
In regards to Jota, a player who the former Borussia Dortmund boss has labelled as ‘so valuable’ (as quoted by This Is Anfield), he returned to team training before our defeat of Roy Hodgson’s side and could therefore make a return to action when Manchester United visit Anfield next Sunday.
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