Klopp Talk: “Whoever is Available We are Still Liverpool”
The Liverpool manager says Reds can’t, and don’t, use injuries as an excuse.
Perhaps the biggest talking point of Liverpool’s season thus far has been the slew of injuries that has plagued the club from the beginning. With the exception and Andrew Robertson and Gini Wijnaldum, every member of the club’s first team has been unavailable for selection for at least one match in the first quarter of this season.
Despite these injury woes, manager Jürgen Klopp knows that Liverpool can’t make excuses. Regardless of who is or is not available, the Reds are going to have high expectations for every match simply because they are Liverpool.
“I said it, whoever is available we are still Liverpool,” Klopp said during his press conference today. “We are Liverpool, that is how we see it. We still want to win the game actually and I think pretty much most of the people think we have to win the game.”
Klopp went on to express that people are going to expect results from Liverpool no matter what, and injuries simply aren’t going to let them off the hook if they don’t deliver. He also made it very clear that he is not interested in even attempting to use injuries as an excuse.
“You can see that when you speak before or after the game, people don’t talk ‘oh he’s not available, he’s not available’. Nobody really allows you to use that situation as an excuse and we don’t. We don’t.”
Though he won’t make excuses, the German manager also didn’t shy away from addressing the difficulty of what Liverpool, and football clubs in general, are facing in this compacted season.
“The situation is tough, 100 per cent, but we are on match-day nine or ten and it feels quite long, but it is not even a third of the season.”
While Liverpool have performed quite well despite their injury woes, currently sitting joint top of the Premier League and having clinched their Champion’s League group with one matchday remaining, Klopp made it clear that where they sit now isn’t what’s important.
“So who cares where in the moment [we are]?” said Klopp. “We try to play football, we’ve won some games, drawn in others, lost one, massively, and that’s the job. I said before, this is not a season where you throw a target at the start of the season on the table and say we have to be here or there.”
Surviving this season and just doing the best he can with the players at his disposal has been a common theme in Klopp’s messaging recently. Some teams will be luckier than others, but that ultimately doesn’t matter. All that matters is making it through this hectic campaign.
“Everybody tries to come through and some teams are more lucky with injuries than others, and that is the situation.”
Source: liverpooloffside.sbnation.com
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