With Jurgen Klopp’s selection wisdom questioned after a tired display as Liverpool drew 1-1 with Luton, was the performance really the manager’s fault?
By Jack Lusby, ThisIsAnfield.com
“That’s something I take personally, to be honest.”
It was an eye-opening assessment from Jürgen Klopp, after his side’s late fightback to draw 1-1 at lowly Luton, with the manager at a loss over one major failing.
“What I didn’t like particularly was, first half, we had 0.0 counter-pressing. That’s something I take personally, to be honest. I told the boys it’s certainly not OK,” he told reporters at Kenilworth Road.
“But because I know they actually want to do it, the question is why they didn’t do it, so I have to figure that out. I will, it’s not rocket science probably.”
Liverpool saw 73 percent possession against the Hatters, their second-highest of any game so far this season, which goes a ways to explain why they were not required to employ the fundamental principle of Klopp’s game as frequently as, say, the 2-2 draw with Brighton in October that saw just 54 percent possession.
But there was a clear lack of urgency in his side as they struggled to put Luton to sword, which showed in their failure to convert chances.
Liverpool missed all six of their big chances, while they posted a rate of 2.85 xG – their third-highest in this season’s Premier League behind only the wins over Nottingham Forest (3.19) and Bournemouth (3.08) – but only scored late through Luis Díaz’s header (a chance worth 0.15 xG).
A popular opinion developing is that Klopp failed to manage his squad adequately between the meetings with Bournemouth in the League Cup on Wednesday and the trip to Luton in the league on Sunday.
The manager did make eight changes, though, with only Joe Gomez, Dominik Szoboszlai and Mohamed Salah keeping their places, while the decision was made for Kostas Tsimikas – de facto first choice at left-back in the absence of Andy Robertson – to start in the cup, not the league.
Klopp will assume responsibility, as ever, which was telling in his admission that he “knew they actually want to [press],” but in truth, the manager’s hands were largely tied.
When it comes to team selection, he relies heavily upon the club’s medical staff, who will carefully monitor each player’s workload before informing Klopp who is and isn’t available for any given game.
It is notable that two of the players who started against both Bournemouth and Luton, and were both severely lacking in the latter, are among the most-used already this season.
Szoboszlai (1,326) ranks 10th for outfield minutes for club and country across Europe’s top five leagues, with Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes (1,339) the only player above him from the Premier League. Salah (1,227), meanwhile, is seventh from those above the age of 30, with Kyle Walker (1,260) the only Premier League outfielder who has clocked more.
But there are certain factors that cannot be mitigated, namely a player’s desire to feature.
In the days leading up to the Luton clash, Szoboszlai gave an interview with Hungarian podcast Fodball in which he insisted: “Personally, I want to play in every game, even if I’m a bit tired.”
In his pre-match press conference, Klopp himself said of Salah: “He feels extremely well, you can see that he enjoys the team a lot, played 105 minutes [against Forest] and then he played as a No. 9 [against Bournemouth], enjoyed that as well…off the pitch, he’s in even better shape, I would say.”
There were a number of absences which informed Klopp’s thinking, too, with Robertson, Conor Bradley, Stefan Bajčetić and Thiago all out with long-term injuries, Luke Chambers and Ben Doak missing the trip to Bournemouth and youngsters Bobby Clark, Melkamu Frauendorf, Kaide Gordon and Harvey Blair also unavailable.
It left the manager with few options in both midfield and attack, and with two players presenting themselves as continually available, it was almost a given Szoboszlai and Salah would start both games. The question was whether to fully rotate in midfield or attack, with the call ultimately made to field Szoboszlai out wide and bring Wataru Endo, Harvey Elliott and Curtis Jones into midfield.
The only real risk Klopp could have taken at Dean Court was fielding 18-year-old Calum Scanlon at left-back, allowing Tsimikas to provide much-needed width at Kenilworth Road, but there was clearly a reluctance to pair him with another rookie in 20-year-old centre-back Jarell Quansah.
During a turbulent victory on the south coast, Jones then picked up a minor injury, while with Tsimikas affected by the workload, Gomez was required to pull double duty as left-back at Luton.
Salah had to start again because Diaz was not ready to do so – and, given the circumstances, it would have been unfair to ask him to – while Cody Gakpo played 81 minutes on his first start since injury against Bournemouth, more than in his three previous appearances combined (79), and was therefore unable to keep his place.
Certain players may not be trusted to start a physical game in the Premier League yet, either, with Scanlon, Doak and Chambers among those. Another, Endo, admitted prior to the Luton clash that “everything is different” after swapping the Bundesliga for the English top flight.
“Of course I don’t play a lot of games in the Premier League,” the Japan captain told Sky Sports, “but when I played against Newcastle, it was a very tough game for me. It’s a lot of speed, everything is different.”
In reality, more than a reflection on Klopp’s selection policy, the difficulty Liverpool faced against Luton more so highlighted the problem they are facing in navigating their first campaign back in the Europa League since 2015/16. The knock-on effect of regularly playing on Thursdays and Sundays is starting to show, despite the overriding strength of the squad as Klopp’s disposal.
Though it represented another failure to put a newly promoted team to the sword, having only won three of their last 10 away meetings with such sides, this should still be seen as a one-off – as, after all, Liverpool did create more than enough chances to take all three points.
“Even with all they did, we created chances and didn’t finish them off with the last conviction, to be 100 percent honest,” Klopp concluded.
“We were not calm enough in these moments. We should have scored and we should have created more. But, first and foremost, it was alright. We probably created enough, just put one or two to bed and it’s fine, you win 1-0, 2-0 and it’s absolutely fine.”
So when Klopp and his analysts are poring over footage of a game which could have seen Liverpool move into second within a point of Premier League leaders Manchester City, the main takeaway should not be that he failed to manage his squad between another week of two games and a tight turnaround.
It was that he had little choice – and that a measure of luck for the likes of Salah, Gakpo, Diogo Jota and Darwin Núñez would have told a very different story.
(Images from IMAGO)
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