Liverpool avoided their first FA Cup defeat to fourth-tier opposition when Brad Smith salvaged a 2-2 draw for Klopp’s kids with a 72nd-minute equaliser on Friday night.
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Jerome Sinclair of Liverpool beats Jordan Moore-Taylor of Exeter City (15) to score their first and equalising goal during the Emirates FA Cup third round match between Exeter City and Liverpool at St James Park on January 8, 2016 in Exeter, England.
With injuries forcing Jürgen Klopp into fielding a team of relatively unknown youngsters, it wasn’t a huge surprise to see Exeter take an early lead through Tom Nichols.
With Christian Benteke, Adam Bogdan and Jose Enrique the only senior players in Liverpool’s starting 11, it did come as a surprise that they started so well, pinging the ball around and troubling the home side.
Oh, yeah, and that bog they call a football pitch. Liverpool at least have a chance of salvaging the tie when they face Exeter at home and hopefully can get the win to progress into the next round.
Klopp’s gamble looked to have failed until Smith took advantage of a tiring Exeter to spare his manager’s blushes, but the German has previously complained about his side’s busy fixture schedule and the draw has added another game to that. “It was really hard for us today”. “We took it, we did it, the young lads helped us and we have another game”.
“If you want to criticise somebody, do it with me and leave the players alone”, he said.
Tiago Ilori, Kevin Stewart and Ryan Kent all made first-team debuts as Liverpool fielded one of the most inexperienced teams in their history, with only striker Christian Benteke having made more than five appearances for the club this season.
“We speak several times a week, honestly and sometimes very harshly, especially when we worked closely together at Dortmund”, Wagner told the Daily Mirror. “We haven’t thought of it as a hindrance for one minute, but you have to go into any game in a positive focus”, the coach said.
“It’s obvious what we have to learn in the future”, Klopp said to the BBC.
For Klopp, his side did well in hard circumstances considering they have barely played with each other or worked with each other as a team on the training pitch.
“You just say “OK, I could not be prepared for this”.
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Things haven’t been going according to plan for Gotze since he was lured by Pep Guardiola to continue his career at Bayern, and Klopp is ready to offer him a life to play regular first team football again in the English Premier League.
