Jurgen Klopp believes there was “a witch in the building” after further injuries helped ensure more Liverpool frustration against Crystal Palace. Nat Phillips made his first top-flight start in almost 15 months after Joel Matip was ruled out with a groin complaint and Joe Gomez was fit enough only for the bench. The Reds were already without Caoimhin Kelleher, Ibrahima Konate, Calvin Ramsay, Curtis Jones, Thiago Alcantara, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Diogo Jota. And when asked how long Matip faces on the sidelines, Klopp lifted the lid on a week of major disruption at the AXA Training Centre.
Jurgen Klopp said: “It will be two weeks… more, I think. We will see. The week was crazy. It was like we had a witch in the building, honestly. Every day somebody else pulled out for the craziest reasons. In the end, Joey didn’t start – and Nat did really well, I have to say – because he trained only yesterday again. At the start of the week he had a little issue. Bobby couldn’t make it. Hendo this morning we got the information there’s a little concern about something if he plays too long, so he didn’t play that long. That’s the situation. It was not too cool. But the game we made of it, I really liked it. That’s how it is. We want to fight and I saw that a lot, and we played really good stuff. A lot of good performances. But that’s it now, we drew. Let’s carry on.”
