Klopp’s banking on the Kop kids
JURGEN KLOPP is ready to swing the axe to put Liverpool’s top-four campaign back on track.
And the under-fire Reds manager will turn to youth to solve a defensive crisis that threatens to wreck his season.
Klopp hauled off centrehalf Dejan Lovren after just half-an-hour of a disastrous showing away to Spurs on Sunday and will now take the shell-shocked defender out of the firing line.
The German coach will give England Under-21 star Joe Gomez, who has figured mostly at rightback, an extended run at centre-half, with local teenager Trent Alexander Arnold, just 19, coming in at right-back.
The four goals Liverpool conceded at Wembley means they have now shipped 15 in just five Premier League games away from home, comfortably the worst
record in the top flight. Liverpool fans are angry that a defence that undermined the Reds last season was not beefed up during the summer transfer window.
Klopp missed out on his No.1 target, Southampton centre-back Virgil van Dijk, but the one defender he did bring in – £10million leftback Andy Robertson, from Hull – appears to have fallen off the Anfield radar, with former outcast Alberto Moreno resurrecting his career this season.
In goal, 29-year-old Simon Mignolet, also criticised for his performance against Spurs, looks set to lose his place to 24-year-old Loris Karius.
The German Under-21 international has himself struggled for form since arriving at Anfield last season.
But he played well in his only Premier League start this season, a 4-0 defeat of Arsenal.
Klopp was fuming after the defeat at Spurs, insisting he could have defended better himself, and that will be reflected in the team he names to face Huddersfield on Saturday.