Klopp glad to hand opportunities to Liverpool fringe members
Liverpool beat Derby County comfortably 3-0 and Jurgen Klopp was able to give minutes to the likes of Loris Karius, Ragnar Klavan, Lucas Leiva Divock Origi, Ovie Ejaria and Danny Ings.
With European competitions passing Liverpool by this season, that cut a glut of matches off the schedule for a club with a number of competent options to play.
That’s good for the tippy top of the first team, they’ll get to play most Premier League games and be fresh, but for the fringe players it’ll get tough. Someone like Divock Origi should be playing as much as he can at this stage, but he’s stuck behind Daniel Sturridge and Roberto Firmino in attack, rightfully so at that, but it’s tough for his development.
Thankfully for Origi and the others, there’s a second cup competition. And double thankfully for them, Liverpool progressed through the third round, giving them another game to play.
Klopp rotated the team confidently, giving minutes to some players who haven’t seen the pitch much this season.
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“For these guys, there was no doubt that the first time would come,” Klopp said, via Liverpoolfc.com. “Without injuries or something else, a little bit of time for adapting to different things, it would not have been so long. That was good.”
Ovie Ejaria made the bench against Chelsea and did the same against Derby, except he was able to come off the pine for his professional debut. Another player who got minutes is the forgotten Danny Ings.
“Ovie made his first [appearance], so that was nice,” said Klopp. “Ingsy, we gave him half an hour and that was really good. Divock, 90 minutes, was really important. But we didn’t do it to give them match time, we did it because they were rested and could go full tonight. That was more the reason – more than saying, ‘OK, come on, you can go for it [debuts]’.”
In defense, Ragnar Klavan was completely fit so he was going to play and did well next to Joel Matip for the first time.
“Ragnar was completely fresh so we had to make the decision – Dejan or Joel? It was the first game for them together [Matip and Klavan] and that was good too,” said Klopp. “A lot of things were really good, but it was not the perfect game. We wanted to do a few things and I saw a few of them, some things I didn’t see. That’s how it is but we are on a good way still and tonight was another professional performance, so all good – not more, but not less.”
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