Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has no regrets about leaving Daniel Sturridge on the bench for their Europa League semi-final defeat in Villarreal and even with hindsight would make the same decision again.
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“We have to respect the intensity of the last game and think about the line-up for Sunday”, he said. So we will be ready.
So, for myself, all I can do every weekend is go out there, perform to the best of my abilities. Then, the 92nd minute, a counter-attack – it sounds like it is, not too good and everybody knows it and it should not happen.
The Reds have the unwanted record of being the team who have dropped the most points from winning positions in the Premier League this season and defensive inconsistency blighted Klopp’s opening months in charge. “I think no-one in this room thinks it is usual after the games we’ve had we should start at 12”.
“That’s how it is, but of course we need to have a look at the players from yesterday”.
“A few years ago with Dortmund we played at Athens and they cancelled their game so they could beat Dortmund in the Champions League. [But] I would never say I am Liverpool until I die, because I would be lying”, the striker told journalists at a Sainsbury’s Active Kids promotion event on Friday, as per the Mirror. “It nearly a brilliant away performance”, he added.
“We left our opponents with few chances of scoring a goal”.
“We saw them, we analysed them, we knew their qualities”.
“In a 4-3-3 we didn’t play with Daniel until now, so we thought for today – this 4-3-3, 4-5-1, sometimes a diamond, this very flexible style – it makes sense that the players played together before and that’s why we decided for this lineup”. We managed a good result but we don’t know if it will be short or not until the end of the tie.
“If the players want to be angry for 10 minutes, do it, but then look forward to the rematch at Anfield, that’s all”, he said.
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And Klopp is irked by the fact his squad will have little time to recuperate from their exertions in Spain, indicating that the Premier League is potentially undermining the efforts of its teams in continental competition.
