Jurgen Klopp has indicated he would like a new midfielder before the end of the transfer window – but says he is “not in charge” of what Liverpool are able to spend.
Jurgen Klopp said: “When [every midfielder is] fit, 100% [we have enough numbers], but even then we always look to strengthen, but we have to and we always did [make sure] that it must be the right player and if the right player is not available at this moment then we tend to deal with what we have rather than sign a player who is not 100% right. This situation did not change. Now we have more injuries than we would have imagined and it would be cool to have another midfielder in, of course. But now we have a situation that when the boys come back and stuff like these it changes constantly. Then there is also another fact that I am not in charge of what we can spend. That’s the situation. We get told things and then we deal with it. That is always the same, it didn’t change. You could say that is why we are here with a good understanding and a bad understanding. I always have to accept that and always did. That is it. It makes no sense to worry about something you cannot change. That is a waste of energy, a waste of positivity. I love this group, really I do, and not because they are so good looking, no, it’s because they are incredible characters and they showed it again on Monday. Now let’s go and don’t worry constantly about these kinds of things, the facts are the facts, let’s accept them and go from there.”
On the injury list,
Jurgen Klopp added: “When you have a lot of injuries as a manager, you have to ask yourself what was wrong and it was unlucky, starting with three injuries with players brought here. Caoimhin Kelleher, I hear the Ireland manager didn’t like it or was not happy. For us, he got injured while he was with Ireland, so someone there didn’t pick it up and when he arrived here [for pre-season] he was still injured. It means you have massive problems with such a short break. So he is out until today. Similar with Diogo Jota, he had one pre-season session and was out again, Calvin Ramsay arrived here with problems pretty early. The stress reaction with Curtis Jones, he is not a kid but still pretty young and unlucky. It’s really strange, no-one knows where it is coming from but it can happen, and then Oxlade-Chamberlain has a reasonable muscle injury. Thiago, Ibou Konate in a tackle, getting unlucky, it was a similar situation with Kostas Tsimikas in training, just a normal challenge, Bobby (Roberto Firmino) was only a little [injury] but he was out [last week], Naby Keita was ill, but if they are not available it is all the same. Joel Matip now, that was strange as well. How it happened was he didn’t feel anything in training, walked in and said there is something and it is three weeks, four weeks or whatever. It is just strange. But we cannot pick it up except for three that happened before we arrived. We have a squad where everyone is needed, we are not a 25-26 man squad, but on the other side it has opened up opportunities. I am really happy, I am not sure Stefan Bajectic and Bobby Clark would be that close to the first-team at 17, if everyone was available and now they make big steps in training, but of course we would love to have an extra striker and an extra midfielder available. It’s not cool and you need a moment. Last week was really horrible, three [more] players were not available and in my mind and if you have a chance to solve it together you do and I cannot wait for the next few games for our people to buy into how they did with pretty much the situation with 10 men. We still try it and we never reach anything without fighting. We have reached the biggest things from situations where we were not the best possible, so that is what I like about it. When you can create this it is the best possible for us. We know it will not be easier, but now let’s go for it.”
Jurgen Klopp says he is awaiting further assessment to determine the seriousness of Naby Keita’s latest injury. The Liverpool midfielder hasn’t played a minute this season after missing the opener at Fulham with illness before failing to get off the bench in the 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace last week. The Guinea international was absent from the 2-1 defeat to Manchester United on Monday evening after suffering a setback on Sunday. Klopp is unsure about the severity of the problem for the £52m midfielder as he lamented his growing injury concerns that sees him without as many as nine first-team players.
Jurgen Klopp said: “Naby was injured yesterday. We need further assessment but it doesn’t look like he’s back in training tomorrow, but we need further assessment. It’s just [it happened on] Sunday and then maybe we will know more tomorrow, I don’t know. We had 15 senior outfield players in training, I think. That’s obviously not cool, but I liked the line-up for the game tonight. And we had some good performances, obviously not enough to win the game. But I think we all know that if we score the equaliser it would not be the biggest surprise in the world. It would have been a deserved draw after a start where United looked sharper than us, but not for too long. Our situation is how it is, not perfect but good enough to play better tonight and good enough to have won the game tonight had we played slightly better.”
With Keita sidelined, Klopp is also unable to call upon Curtis Jones, Ibrahima Konate, Joel Matip, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Diogo Jota, Caoimhin Kelleher, Thiago Alcantara and new signing Calvin Ramsay, while Darwin Nunez still has two games of his suspension to serve.
