Juergen Klopp picked out Stoke City top scorer Marko Arnautovic as a player to be wary of when Liverpool take on their Premier League rivals in the first leg of the League Cup semi-finals at the Britannia Stadium on Tuesday.
Advertisement
The English worldwide has returned to training with the club as he battles a persistent hamstring problem, which has restricted him to just six games for his club this season.
Liverpool travel to Stoke for Tuesday night’s semi-final, first leg without Daniel Sturridge again.
“Maybe you get the feeling that everyday we train with Daniel and say “more, more, more” and he gets fitter and fitter and fitter but in the end I say he’s not ready and I wait”.
“What we are trying to do now is to fill his body with energy and strength and everything, that’s what we have to do”.
“We aren’t in situations enough but we are often in situations where we can score goals and we don’t use them”.
The Reds have reached this stage of the competition for the second consecutive season but haven’t won a trophy in four years – with Kenny Dalglish’s side the last to achieve victory in this competition in 2012. I don’t think that Ronald Koeman will show his team (our 6-1 victory) the next time before we play Southampton and say, “Look, this is what they are able to do”.
Lucas Leiva and Emre Can are expected to retain their places but Klopp could bring Joe Allen back in to the side in place of Roberto Firmino to add a bit more defensive solidity in the middle of the park. “We have to go for it. Our target is to win it. It will be tough because Mark Hughes has done a brilliant job”.
Former Anfield boss Graeme Souness said Liverpool’s “sports medicine people will be tearing their hair out” with Klopp’s methods, which he described as “a big ask, to do that and not suffer the problems they’ve suffered”.
“The thing that happened with the tendon in the foot, it’s good”. Lallana and Couthino have been really disappointing and I’m not sure if Sturridge is fit, but Liverpool definitely need a lift. “We can not rush more, it’s time we need”. That is never good in football.
“Any game we play we want to win”.
Advertisement
“We know about this, and we have to solve it. We are really serious in our analysis, we are clear in our words, no excuses”.
