Sky Sports pundit Danny Mills has claimed that Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp doesn’t believe that Joe Gomez is not playing well enough at the moment.
Gomez, 22, has played seven times in all competitions this season but only two of those appearances have come in the Premier League amid a strong start to the season by Joel Matip and Virgil van Dijk.
Before his injury last season, the young England international was the man who partnered van Dijk on a regular basis in the back-line but now he is on the fringes of Klopp’s first-team.
Mills has suggested that Gomez could be struggling to impress the Liverpool manager in training.
“We all expect Joe Gomez to go on to great things. He burst onto the scene and there’s no doubt he’s an exceptional talent but so far you see Matip has got himself first in line for the second centre-half pairing and then Lovren,” Mills told Football Insider.
“Gomez is maybe going to have to up his game in training a little bit, keep working hard as he possibly can. (Is Klopp not seeing enough in training?) It has to be, I’m sure he’s played in behind-closed-door games and maybe under-23 games as well but this is a team at the top of the league.
“They’re doing outstandingly well and you can’t doubt Jurgen Klopp in any way, shape or form. As much as we’d love a young English player in Gomez to be starting, if the manager doesn’t think he’s not quite good enough, then you have to say the manager says he’s not quite good enough.”
OPINION
Gomez’s form has not been anywhere near as good as last season before he was injured but at the moment, there’s no way that Klopp can leave out Matip. The ex-Schalke centre-back is arguably in better form than van Dijk and he is one of the first names on the teamsheet when he is fit and available to play. Gomez has played in just one match where Liverpool have kept a clean sheet this term and that was against MK Dons in the Carabao Cup last month. If Gomez wants to start then he needed to grasp his chance while Matip was sidelined with an injury but he failed to do that and it could now be a while before he gets another chance to shine. While Gomez is playing more in the Champions League than the Premier League, the fact that Liverpool have conceded four times with him on the pitch against Red Bull Salzurg and Genk says a lot. He needs to step up.
