I remember Klopp playing full strength on a CL dead rubber game. At the time, it was suggested that the club wanted him to do this because there was €2million prize money at stake. Someone essential got injured (it may have been Jota).
I’m wondering if they have now seen the bigger picture and even suggested resting players.
Wasn’t that just speculation?
And in any case, wasn’t it precisely the case that Jota needed to play that to get reintegrated into the team after a previous injury?
To be honest, I expected Slot to rotate a bit and make some changes, but I did not expect wholesale rotation (but more like 4-5 changes). That being said, I am glad Slot decided to rest nearly full starting lineup for this match, which is effectively a dead-rubber.
I still think that even with the team at disposal, we could have enough firepower to win. And I think the Greek Scouser might don the armband.
Presuming Robertson doesn’t start, it would probably be Endō again. And perhaps even Kelleher. Based on the Jürgen Klopp Theory of Seniority it would almost definitely be Kelleher before Tsimikas. Possibly even Elliott.
Actually, it was far from full strength. Klopp made 7-8 changes in starting lineup compared to the previous league match. So it was essentially a second string team - with only maybe one or two usual outfield starters (e.g. I remember Trent was the captain in that match). Yeah, it was fucked up that Jota got injured, but it was mostly due to very bad luck. He was effectively 4th in pecking order among the forwards at that time (behind Mo, Sadio and Bobby) and thus arguably part of the “second string” XI. So it is not like we played full strength then.
Im happy Slot has rotated heavily, it does not really matter about tonight’s result but Saturdays is massive.
So would every Liverpool fan surely? 6 points from our next to PL games would be outstanding
On the plus side…
Bournemouth will not be able to go into the game on Saturday, with a mindset they have the upper hand on the fatigue element
Acknowledging this topic is like catnip to me, but yes. He played in that game because he had got so few minutes over the past 3-4 games because of the strength of the preferred front line. The issue was lots of fans thought he should have been playing more regularly instead of Bobby at that time and so locked him into the brain as a “regular” and refused to acknowledge Klopp’s explanation that the game was important for him to get minutes into his legs.
Now you fuckers, dont make me do this again.
I remember I was really frustrated with the Jota injury because he was the in form striker during that period. He scored something like 8 goals within 10 matches and then he gets injured in a meaningless one.
In the 7 games prior to his injury, he’d only scored 2 goals with 0 assists. In 470 minutes of football.
Contrary to what @Limiescouse said and I remembered though, he started 5 of them (and played >60 in all) and came on as a sub in 2, not missing a single game.
Sure, if you stretch it out to 10 games, you can add another 5 goals, but it was a hat-trick against Atalanta and a goal apiece against Midtjylland and West Ham, all dating back to more than a month prior to the injury.
So not quite in-form, but also not “got so few minutes over the past 3-4 games”.
The kick-off is at 2:00 AM and I might be asleep. YNWA
FIFY
I thought Nunez traveled.
No Darwin Nunez due to illness.
Who’s playing center back with Quansah? Robertson?
