Jurgen Klopp has urged Joe Gomez to keep his morale high and challenged the defender to seize his next opportunity in the Liverpool team.
Jurgen Klopp said: “It’s really unlucky for Joe. He has consistently played on an incredible level and has been one of the best centre-halves in England, but then the big injury came and little injuries on top of that. Then he got COVID, that timing was really bad because he would definitely have played against Cardiff and that would have given him some rhythm and momentum. He couldn’t play that because of COVID so it has been tough. The only thing I can say as well, there are tougher things than being a squad player at the moment for Liverpool. There are much tougher things out there and the only answer in football is you have to fight through these moments and show you are ready for the moment when the situation changes. That’s it. We had too often only one centre-half available or even none, so we couldn’t have reacted differently, but the quality of the boys, especially Joe who has not played a lot of football in the last few months, is incredible. Having him in training just shows what a high quality squad we have if someone like Joe has only played 15 minutes since Leicester (on December 22). It is never nice for the players, I understand that 100 per cent, but Joe takes it really professionally. He is a young lad and everything will be fine in the future but at the moment, it’s for sure harder.”
Liverpool entertain Leicester on Thursday evening as the Premier League returns and Klopp said he is is expecting a response from a side whose grip on the FA Cup was relinquished by a 4-1 drubbing at Nottingham Forest at the weekend.
Jurgen Klopp added: “I didn’t see what Brendan said, I saw the game and Nottingham [played well], we should not forget that. It looked like every Championship team caused everyone problems. Cardiff caused us problems in their away game so that’s just a cup competition. When you lose a game…yes, I’ve lost cup games against lower division teams and what I said after that, I cannot remember anymore. But the way I know Brendan, I think he said what he said for one reason – because he wants to see a reaction from his players. And that is the one thing I am concerned about and I am thinking about. That is the Leicester team I am thinking about and not the Leicester team who lost to Nottingham Forest. We heard it and hopefully we are prepared.”
