Jurgen Klopp denies Liverpool are in defensive crisis amidst injury troubles

Jurgen Klopp has denied that Liverpool are in a defensive crisis despite a growing list of injury concerns.

Joe Gomez was the first to fall for the Reds, suffering a fracture in his lower leg when Liverpool travelled to Burnley a couple of weeks ago.

Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joel Matip followed him in quick succession, as they both suffered injuries in the crucial final Champions League group stage match against Napoli.

READ: Ovie Ejaria returns to Liverpool after Ranger loan terminated

READ: John Arne Riise: I’d rather play for Jurgen Klopp than Jose Mourinho

Alexander-Arnold was pictured wearing a protective boot in a media appearance, with Jurgen Klopp ruling him out of the Manchester United game this weekend.

Matip is expected back around the same time as Gomez – late January – after requiring surgery on a fractured collarbone.

Most frustrating of all for Klopp is that at least two of those injuries were wholly avoidable.

Gomez was on the end of a needless slide tackle from Ben Mee at Burnley as he saw the ball out of play, while Matip tumbled over Kalidou Koulibaly who backed into him in an aerial duel as the final whistle went against Napoli.

Nathaniel Clyne has only just returned to training after an injury kept him out the last couple of weeks, and Klopp has pointed out that he has more youngsters raring to go should he need to call on someone.

He said: “It’s our situation. It’s a crisis is if you feel it’s a crisis.

“With Trent it’s not as serious as the other two boys, but absolutely not top class news, that’s clear.

“For Trent, it’s day by day. It’s not cool but as long as we have enough players, it’s our job to find the solution for the weekend. But of course, it’s not perfect.”

On Clyne, Klopp said: “Clyne is a very experienced player. Is it perfect? No. Is he experienced enough to do it? Yes, 100%. We have options, we will not push Clyne through after not the longest spell of training.”

He added: “We have Rafa Camacho who played outstandingly well in pre-season, even Curtis Jones, they both played against United. We have other options.

“As long as we have options, everything is fine, if we don’t have the obvious option then we need to be creative. Hopefully we don’t have to be creative too often because it’s never a good sign for the squad depth.”

The post Jurgen Klopp denies Liverpool are in defensive crisis amidst injury troubles appeared first on AnfieldHQ.

Source: anfieldhq.com