Did Klopp blame the fixture congestion for this game? I would be VERY surprised but if he did he would lose my respect this is applicable for good teams and all managers know that.
Klopp has ran his players into the ground for years and then is unhappy when it backfires. He deserves zero sympathy for the consequences of his decisions.
No it was clearly one of those 'you want to criticize my players for not running with as much food as you eat' kind of answers. He didn't blame anything, the reporter questioned the players physical condition and he saw red.
The fatigue excuse is what I meant by the players let him down. Of course the manager has to take some blame he is the one that make the tactics and decisions but I do not buy that if Klopp played the kids on thursday they would have played better. I am not a pro player but they certainly did not look out of breath or even close to be tired after that Prague game. If anything it looked more like a casual practice. All the key players were subs out, with the exception of Salah who would have been susbtitued if Bobby Clark did not got a knock.
It's more than just that. The whole team were not up to par mentally. Something was not right. Over confidence maybe? Arrogance... something not right with the mentality of the players with so little games to play and that many important games too.
Klopp is a very pro player type of manager. He always ask his players if they are up to play. I have never heard about one player in his 9 years at LFC that blamed to be overplayed. At somepoint many fans questioned Klopp for playing Salah and Mane that much but Klopp answered that Salah and Mane are VERY competitive they do not take being benched very well and they always have shown the effort. The players that need to answer the call is the player subbed in like Gakpo. He has no excuse to not put in the effort.
No to me it's just Gakpo if I'm looking for something to blame. He's been a problem all season but it hadn't cost the team yet. You can't process things as slowly as him at this level.
This was just one of the instances but they didn't even get a good shot out of this.
Gomez was decisive on one of the Pool goals while Bradley couldn't stop the winner from being scored, running back with all the grace of new born Bambi.
100%. It's certainly a bit of second guessing.
I mean if LFC take care of the ball they win. Look at the period around the 60-70th minute where they possessed the ball and United had no idea where to go/what to do. They wouldn’t have been able to take the ball off LFC for an hour if we didn’t brain fart. Their second goal was a result of some lucky pin ball bounces. Their 3rd goal was I think Tsimikas making a dumb unnecessary pass right to a Utd player and the 4th goal I guess was only because Klopp wanted to dodge a PK shootout because their set up on the corner Utd countered from was absurd. Just a bunch of unforced errors from a team that has not done that very often this season; but also didn’t see anything that makes me afraid to be back there in a couple weeks. But hey that’s soccer. Will see how it goes
