Jurgen Klopp opens up about midfield management ahead of a busy schedule

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has explained how he will look to manage his midfield selections amidst the busy winter fixture schedule. The Reds play their third match in the space of a week when Southampton visit Anfield on Saturday, with trips to Goodison Park, Molineux and San Siro over a six-day period following. Ahead of the weekend clash, Klopp was asked about the importance of keeping Thiago Alcantara, who recently returned from a nine-game lay-off due to a calf injury, fit. The Spaniard has endured a stop-start career so far at Anfield, but in the midweek, he scored a stunning goal during his Player of the Match-winning display against FC Porto.

Ahead of the match against the Saints, Klopp said: “Thiago is an incredible player for us, of course, but we found solutions when he was not available and we have to find solutions. It’s not about one player out or in. The quality of our team when our midfielders are fit – just to talk about our midfielders – we have an incredible choice, to be honest, of players there.”

‘Thiago has a very specific skillset’

Opening up about the Spaniard, he said, “Thiago has a very specific skillset, absolutely, and is very helpful when he is on the pitch when he has rhythm and all that stuff, so that’s the challenge we face: make sure he can gain rhythm but not overdo it. But we have that with all the players pretty much, that’s the challenge we face all the time, especially with the amount of games coming up.”

“That’s why we took him off again in this game [against Porto], just to not get him the chance to get too tired in a game, where then injuries might happen. We have a similar thing to do with Ox a little bit, he played now a lot of games [and] we have to think about the same stuff.”

He also gave an insight into how to deal with players who come back from injuries. “Others came back from injury. Fab came back, for example, from Brazil with a really bad stomach. He played then the full game [versus Arsenal], was possible, but then we thought, ‘OK, come on, we should not stress it there’ and left him out [against Porto]. He played only 25 minutes,” he explained.

“Hendo came back injured from the national team, Robbo came back injured from the national team so that’s how you have to get through these games. Again, Wednesday-Saturday is always a time where we have to really think about ‘how can we change?’. Saturday-Wednesday is completely different, it’s a day more, that’s what you need. But Wednesday-Saturday, after all the games we played, we have to really think about.”

Klopp: I’m really pleased about the performance

Earlier, in his post-match press conference, Klopp spoke highly about Thiago’s goal against Porto. He said, “Not much [more I can say]! Let me say, we had bigger chances than that in the game, but we scored with that situation because it was just an incredible goal, obviously. Whoever sees Thiago in training knows he has the technique to do it, but even with this technique it doesn’t happen constantly that he can fire such a thunderball. It was good timing, to be honest. Great goal.”

“The whole game, we needed in some moments some luck because of a few new things we did today. They came through and had big chances, especially counter-attacking on the left side and were very tricky to defend. They had their moments, but they didn’t score – we scored twice and controlled the game in the second half much better. So, I’m really pleased about the performance.”