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Photo by James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images
Andy Robertson at center back, and a full 90 for Mohamed Salah? Klopp, you have some explaining to do...
In both legs of the impressive 11-2 aggregate victory over Sparta Prague, Jurgen Klopp sent out a stronger than expected team, and made some unusual substitutions along the way, especially in the second (home) leg.
The strong line up, in the midst of an ongoing injury crisis, no less, had already cost the Reds Ibrahima Konate after the defender pulled up with a knock just minutes into the second half of the first leg.
Of course, injuries often have unintended knock-on effects, and this was precisely the case on Thursday night. The injury to Konate ended up forcing not-a-center-back Andy Robertson into the center of defense, and Bobby Clark’s injury kept recently-returned-from-injury Mo Salah on the pitch for the full 90 minutes.
“We were 4-0 up and 5-1 [from the first leg], so that’s the moment when you think, ‘OK, we take off now x, y and z.’” Klopp explained in his pre-match press conference.
“I don’t think we would have played Robbo [Andy Robertson] as a center-half if it’s 0-0 or we are 2-0 down – but he did exceptionally well, by the way, so he’s the next one who opened the door for a new position. That’s the only reason for it.
“How I said, that’s really strange, you cannot believe that you are 4-1 up at half-time and on aggregate obviously 9-2, so even the biggest pessimist would not think that we will not go through to the next round. That was because of that, no other reason. Usually you really have no time and no resources to think about the next game but that’s why we did the changes we made.”
Robertson, if nothing else, provided a bit of experience in seeing the game out. Not that the game really needed to be seen out.
As for Salah, Klopp also recognizes that it was a less-than-ideal situation.
“It was then a strange game in the second half. I would have loved to take him off but it was not possible because of Bobby [Clark]’s situation. And of course, he could manage that pretty well. But even then he set up another goal which was offside. Mo is pure quality.”
Luckily, it appears as if there were no more injures picked up along the way. Hopefully Mo is fully ready to go tomorrow in the massive cup quarterfinal against Manchester United.
