Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
ROBBO: WE’LL SET BENCHMARK FOR TOUGHNESS
Kop defender is relishing the challenge of unrelenting schedule and insists the injury-hit Liverpool squad will only get stronger as season reaches its climax
LATEST CASUALTY AlexanderArnold was crocked at Man City
ANDY ROBERTSON says Liverpool can handle anything a congested fixture programme throws at them, and insists the relentless demands will bring out the best in them.
Reds R manager Jurgen Klopp voiced voic concerns that the packed schedule sche was placing unfair physical demands dem on players after Sunday’s draw dr with Manchester City.
But Liverpool full-back Robertson insisted the Premier League champions will cope as the games come thick and fast between now and Christmas – and will feed off the pressure. He said: “Hopefully we can come back from the internationals full of confidence and then really kick on, because we are a good team.
“We need to attack this Christmas period because it’s going to be hectic. But we have dealt with it pretty well in previous seasons and that’s what we need this season.”
Sunday’s draw came at a cost, with Trent Alexander-arnold’s calf injury r u l i n g h i m o u t of E n g l a n d ’s international triple-header.
And with the full-back joining Fabinho, Thiago Alcantara, Virgil van Dijk and Alex OxladeChamberlain in the treatment room, Klopp is understandably frustrated.
B u t R o b e r t s o n ma i n t a i n e d Liverpool can still keep swinging punches. “I think when we started getting injuries and we lost a couple of players with Covid-19 everyone expected the wheels to fall off,” he said. “But we’ve steadied the ship and picked up some great results.
“Long may that continue and long may we keep building our confidence and building our performances.”
The top clubs are trying to revisit the decision to have just three substitutes this season, following a spate of muscular injuries.
Klopp’s plea that the relentless demands of the fixture list was
“injuring the players” came just 24 hours after Ole Gunnar Solskjaer insisted his Manchester United side were “set up to fail” against Everton by the unrelenting schedule.
United were forced to play at Goodison just 48 hours after arriving back from a Champions League match in Istanbul.
Pep Guardiola, Frank Lampard and J ose Mourinho have also weighed i n on a debate about excessive demands on players.
Yet while all the Big Six have at least one player on the sidelines with a muscular injury at the moment, the list of walking wounded is by no means an epidemic. And smaller clubs will once again fear this is the latest concerted attempt to drive through changes to the substitutes rule.
The big guns want to increase substitutes from three from seven replacements, to five from nine, but have twice been defeated in votes of Premier League shareholders.
Should they succeed in driving a third vote through it would be a blow to the smaller clubs in the division as they have less depth and quality in their squads.
Some may also detect a growing panic from the top clubs, as they fear for their places in Europe given the bright start made to the season f rom the likes of Southampton, Aston Villa and Leicester City.
With just four Champions League places up for grabs, the traditional powerhouses sense their place at the top table is no longer guaranteed.
For the teams currently involved in Europe – Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Leicester, Arsenal and Spurs – the run-up to the festive programme will be unrelenting.
Liverpool face a dozen games in 43 days, while hile
Carabao Cup quarterrfinalists Manchester
City, Arsenal and
United play one more in the spell from November 21 to January 2.
When we started getting injuries, and lost players to Covid, everyone expected the wheels to fall off