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Allardyce Didn’t Mean To Criticise Klopp

Klopp also responded to Sunderland counterpart Sam Allardyce’s allegations that the high-intensity pressing strategy he has introduced at Anfield was responsible for the injury crisis.

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The Reds lost three more players to injury during their Capital One Cup semi-final first-leg win over Stoke City on Tuesday, and key midfielder Philippe Coutinho appears likely to be sidelined until February with his hamstring issue.

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is having mixed success in his first year in charge but he will become a cult hero if he manages to take the Reds to their first FA Cup final since 2012.

Klopp will select an inexperienced, youthful side in the third-round tie at Exeter City tonight, well aware of the consequences should Liverpool go out to the League Two side.

Klopp and Allardyce clashed previously on the touchline over a Jeremain Lens tackle on Mamadou Sakho during Liverpool’s 1-0 Premier League win over Sunderland last week which led to Allardyce labelling the former Borussia Dortmund manager a “soft German”.

“I’m glad for Sam that he is such an experienced manager that he has time to think about Liverpool’s problems”.

He said: “We have taken back our own players, especially if they are not in the flawless situation at clubs where they are on loan”. “It is a chance for Exeter and they have to take it”, he said.

“One injury at the wrong moment is a problem for the whole squad because other players have to play too much but you have to react to this”.

“Phil had a problem with a -hamstring a few weeks ago”. “We play only football and a team like Liverpool, with the ambitions the club have, we have to find a way to be successful”.

“You all talk about the intensity of my style”, Klopp said.

“We’ve had so many games recently that we’ve mainly been doing recovery sessions between games so it’s not as if the training has been really intensive”.

Out-of-form Exeter have slipped to 16th in League Two after losing four successive games, three of them at their compact St James Park home.

Liverpool are one step away from Wembley in the League Cup, but have been promised a testing start to their FA Cup campaign by underdogs Exeter City.

“I think that’s the thing we have to do now”, he said in his pre-match press conference on Thursday.

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“It’s a compromise between how much you risk, but what we don’t want to do is just go into the game to defend”, explained the Grecians manager in the build-up to the match.

Mario Gotze