Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
KLOPP: I SHOULD BE SO LUCKY
‘Title will rest more on good fortune than on good play’
Anfield: 5.30pm
DAVID MADDOCK JURGEN KLOPP did not see the funny side when asked if, due to injuries, he would be forced to field an Under-23 team in the Premier League by the turn of the year.
“I understand the joke, I just don’t laugh,” said the Liverpool manager.
The Anfield list of walking wounded is no laughing matter for Klopp, who says no squad in the Premier League is large enough to cope with the demands of an unprecedented season.
And he believes that becoming champions will be more about luck than talent.
“All the teams are quality teams so above all you need to be lucky with injuries,” he said. “Yes, we can rotate but, however big a squad you have, it will not be enough.
“You cannot leave players out for four or five weeks, maybe because you do not need them, and then expect them to be 100 per cent when they come back. I don’t think that is possible.
“This season is different to anything I have ever experienced , dif ferent to what every coach in the Premier League has ever experienced.
“In Germany they have fewer games and still find it incredibly difficult.”
Liverpool have lost Virgil van Dijk for a big part of the season. Alex Oxlade Chamberlain has been sidelined for months, Fabinho is out, and they have already this season had spells without Alisson, Thiago, Joel Matip, Naby Keita, Jordan Henderson, and Joe Gomez.
Yet Klopp knows there is no point complaining. Every top Premier League club is in the same boat, he says, and the challenge is simple: How to survive a season unprecedented in football history.
“My job is to make decisions, to change here, rotate there, and to help them all to be on the pitch in the best possible shape,” he said.
“It will be interesting in the summer, after an unbelievably intense season, to have a European Championship. And for the first time we now have triple-headers in the international break.”
What Klopp doesn’t want is for fans to think he is moaning when there are far graver problems in the world.
“Life at the moment is really difficult and we don’t make this problem the biggest problem,” he said. “My concern is the welfare of the players. It’s important to talk about the mental welfare of players but we have to talk much more often about the physical welfare of players.”
And in the short term it means Klopp will have to get creative because for this evening’s visit of West Ham he is down to only one fit centre-back in Gomez. Matip is in training again but is unlikely to be risked against the Hammers, who have held Spurs and Manchester City in their last two matches.
Klopp has untried centrebacks waiting in the wings but is more likely to turn to more reliable Premier League performers playing out of position. “Jordan Henderson, Gini Wijnaldum, James Milner and Andy Robertson can all play centre-half,” he said. “They are not smaller than Javier Mascherano and I’d say he played pretty well in that position.”
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No.10 and he can definitely do that for us.
“But he does it in a way that he is very much about creating chances for others with his crossing ability and final pass.
“He’s not necessarily a winger who is going to fly past players all the time, albeit that is in his game. He can find a pass and sometimes last season I felt we lacked that when we were playing against low-block defences.
“We saw a bit of his quality and personality against Krasnodar in midweek. The idea of receiving the ball and turning, finding that pass before teams are set, that is what I’m excited to see from Hakim.”
It was in the last weekend of October last year that Christian Pulisic showed his potential with a hat-trick in Chelsea’s win at Burnley – three days after a Champions League trip – and Ziyech, 27, showed what he has to offer against Krasnodar on the long trip to Russia this week.
Maybe that will be a healthy omen for the Moroccan international – the Dutch-born forward certainly does not lack confidence, according to Lampard.
The Chelsea manager said: “I really like him as a personality. I had conversations with him very early when we signed him and was struck by his confidence. There is an inner confidence which I love.
“We needed that.
“We need players with confidence and personality who believe they should be here and want to offer something. And since he has been here he has been a dream to work with.
“Sometimes you see the best of players when they are injured. He was so excited to come here and hit the ground running but he got his injury in pre-season. Since then he has shown a work ethic in the gym, interaction with the physios, a desire to get fit and to form relationships in the group.
“I watched him in a lot of the Champions League games for Ajax so I knew he had the ability to play at this level but it is not an easy league.
“I need players who can try and make that pass and try to take us up a level. Hakim showed that at Krasnodar. Part of the reason he has settled so well is because of his mindset.”