Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says that although he feels it is possible to wind up Chelsea’s Diego Costa, and it would make sense to take him out of the game as one of the London club’s most dangerous players, he is more concerned about how his own players perform on the night.
Speaking at the pre match conference for the game against Chelsea, the Reds boss said he anticipates the match to be a feisty affair without there being a concerted strategy to unsettle Costa:
“There will be hard challenges, but it is not about having a one-on-one fight the whole 90 minutes and then saying: ‘I took him out of the game’. Taking Diego out of the game makes sense but even then our players can create moments so there are a lot more things to do than only think about Diego Costa.”
Klopp went on to say he hasn’t seen an incident this season where he thinks Costa should have definitely been sent off but the Spanish striker does play on the edge of the law. Whether the Reds deliberately antagonise the Spaniard maybe irrelevant as the forward is almost guaranteed to involve himself in a tussle no matter how the Liverpool players engage him when the face each other on Friday night.
