Jurgen Klopp on why it was difficult leaving Xherdan Shaqiri on the bench against Cardiff

Jurgen Klopp said that it was difficult leaving Xherdan Shaqiri on the bench against Cardiff City yesterday, where the Reds went on to win 4-1 at Anfield.

Shaqiri did eventually come on in the second half, where he had an immediate impact scoring Liverpool’s third for the game.

The Swiss international has been in some blistering form for Liverpool in recent weeks, but Klopp believed he needed to give Shaqiri a rest due to the amount of football he has played of late.

As quoted by the official website of the club, Klopp said the following regarding Shaqiri: “Good. He played four games nearly 90 minutes now in a row – in the international break both games for Switzerland, for us Huddersfield and then Belgrade I think 70 [minutes] so it was clear… we don’t know Shaq long enough and good enough to know how he reacts. Not performance-wise, that’s not important, [but] sometimes you have to protect players until you know them a bit better, and I thought that the line-up we chose for today was a good one. For Adam it was good to start, he was really involved in a lot of things, especially in the first half – of course a bit less in the second half, that’s completely normal – so that helped.

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LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 27: Sadio Mane of Liverpool celebrates with teammate Xherdan Shaqiri after scoring his team’s fourth goal during the Premier League match between Liverpool FC and Cardiff City at Anfield on October 27, 2018 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. (Photo by Jan Kruger/Getty Images)

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“Then Shaq came in and was involved I think in two nice goals, that’s always good. That made it so hard to leave him out for that game, only you have to think a bit about it whether it’s really the right thing to do. We decided differently but that’s how it is: football games are 97, 98 minutes and you need 14 players for that. OK today, we only had 13 as we only changed twice, but bringing on that quality what we can bring on is a massive difference.”

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Source: anfieldhq.com