‘Just strange’ - Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool admission ahead of Man Utd

The Reds have been unfortunate with injuries so far this season.
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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has claimed that the club’s current injury concerns are “just strange”.

The Anfield boss will take his side to face Manchester United on Monday evening, but will have to do so without a number of key players at his disposal.

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Joel Matip, Thiago Alcantara, Ibrahima Konate, Curtis Jones, Diogo Jota, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Calvin Ramsay, and Caoimhin Kelleher are all expected to miss out through injury, while Darwin Nunez is set to begin a three-match Premier League suspension following his red card against Crystal Palace last week.

Addressing the absences in a detailed interview with the club’s official website, Klopp admitted that the situation has become somewhat bizarre.

He said: “When you have a lot of injuries, as a manager you have to ask first yourself what went wrong, stuff like this. Then you go through it and it was really unlucky.

“It started with the two injuries, or three injuries, which the players brought here.

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“Caoimh, I heard the Irish manager didn’t like it, or however you gave him the information. However, for us it’s like this: he got injured at Ireland and whoever was responsible for it in this moment did not pick it up. Then when he arrived here he was still injured without having massive problems. In a short break the boys don’t train like crazy in this three-and-a-half weeks. Two weeks off, one week a little bit, then first time goalie training out until today [Friday].

“Similar [with] Diogo. Played [for Portugal], had one session with us, it happened again. That’s now really unlucky.

“Calvin Ramsay arrived with problems pretty early. The stress reaction for Curtis Jones – he is not a kid anymore but still young, it can happen. It’s really strange, nobody knows exactly where it’s coming from, but it can happen. So, unlucky.

“Oxlade with a reasonable muscle injury. Thiago. Ibou in a tackle, getting in, unlucky-ish. It was a similar situation with Kostas, just in training: normal challenge, knee a little bit strange, out. Bobby only a little but enough for not being available… and I forgot 100 per cent somebody. Naby ill. If they are not available it’s all the same pretty much.

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“Joel now. That was strange as well, how it happened. He didn’t feel anything in training, walked in and then said, ‘There is something’ and then he is out for three weeks, four weeks, whatever.

“So, it’s just strange, that’s true. But we cannot pick it up, we cannot say ‘that is because of that’ or ‘that is because of that’ apart from three [although] we cannot even pick that up, it just happened before we arrived and that increased the number already because obviously we have a squad where everybody is needed. We are not like 25, 26 players.

“But on the other side it opens up opportunities and I am really, really happy. I’m not sure the two boys Stefan Bajcetic and Bobby Clark would be that close to the first team at 17 years old if we would have them all available and now they make real steps, unbelievable every day in training.

“That’s good, but of course we would prefer to have an extra striker, an extra midfielder, available. You can now change five times but you cannot change five times sometimes! That’s it.”

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The German added: “It’s not cool and you need a moment and last week was really horrible because it was like three players in one week. You think, ‘OK, what is going on?’ but that is the situation we are in and now in my mind, if we have a problem and you have the chance to sort it together then you do that together so I can’t wait for the next few games.”