Liverpool’s visit to Manchester United today resulted in a dull goalless draw, and after the match manager Jurgen Klopp offered a bizarre analysis as to why. United saw three players, Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata and Ander Herrera, leave due to hamstring injuries in the first half.
Klopp made comments in his post match news conferences that essentially blamed his opponent’s injury crisis for the match becoming bottled up. So if you found the game to be a boring watch, well it’s the fault of all the guys who got injured…according to the German.
Let’s try to follow his line of reasoning.
“When we started the game it was brilliant actually,” Klopp was quoted in his post match media availabilities.
“We started exactly like we wanted to start. It was direct, we played in behind, we wanted to be there, we followed the ball, we pressed high and it was really good. And then the injury crisis started. A lot of interruptions and things like that and it was obvious it cost us our rhythm.”
Okay so United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer made the substitutions that injuries forced him into and that threw Klopp off?
“We lost the rhythm and didn’t get it back. We were in charge, we passed the ball around, [then] we lost the ball in the wrong moments or passed it through the box but couldn’t keep the ball there,” Klopp continued, throwing in that the injury to one of his players, Roberto Firmino threw another wrench into the machine.
“We lost Bobby in the first half as well, which doesn’t help in general. Chipping the ball in behind, that’s important with the high last line, but we didn’t really do that.”
Klopp then offered a full summation of what he just said, making sure that everyone go this message.
“I would say if United played today with a full team like they played the last couple of weeks or so then it’s a completely different game, they (United players) know exactly what they do, know where they pass, and that means we know as well where they pass. Then it was completely different, the whole game changed and that obviously was not good for us today.”
Perhaps I’m missing something, but I still don’t get it. His explanation makes no more sense to me now, after having read through it three or four times. Klopp is basically admitting to his failure to make adjustments to the adjustments United had to make, and if that’s the case, well then he has some major shortcomings as a manager.
Winning the Premier League title is going to require plenty of moments and games where the boss must improvise. Currently, the Reds are just one point ahead of Manchester City, having failed to win in three of their last four.
Up next they host Watford on Wednesday night.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.