Jurgen Klopp has admitted Liverpool’s fringe players should be playing more this season.
The German claimed that players such as Dejan Lovren, Adam Lallana, and Xherdan Shaqiri haven’t been playing enough for his Liverpool side in the past couple of seasons.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo, Klopp revealed that all three were in good shape despite not featuring much.
“Still, I would say in this moment, Shaq didn’t play enough, he is in a really good shape,” he said.
“Adam didn’t play enough, in a really good shape. Dejan didn’t play enough, in a really good shape.”
Both Shaqiri and Lallana featured at the end of the Community Shield clash with Manchester City, whereas Lovren has failed to make an appearance so far after coming through an illness.
OPINION
Sometimes, that is the way football works and certain Reds’ players shouldn’t expect to walk straight into Klopp’s plan at Anfield right now. As the saying goes, don’t fix what isn’t broken, and right now Liverpool have the perfect formula which has made them near impossible to beat. Their last competitive defeat in 90 minutes came in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final last season against Barcelona at the Nou Camp, so if any of the Reds’ fringe players think they deserve a starting spot, they need a reality check. Lovren is in the centre of transfer speculation still with Sport Bild claiming Bayer Leverkusen are plotting a loan move for the Croatian, with his future at Liverpool in doubt. Shaqiri and Lallana simply have the misfortune of being attack-minded players at a club that have a front-three that between them outscored 13 entire Premier League clubs last season, and will simply not even catch Klopp’s attention at this rate, who simply doesn’t need to change anything.
