Jurgen Klopp Scoffs at Liverpool Game Management Concerns Ahead of Stoke Trip

Jurgen Klopp has hit back at suggestions that Liverpool have a major problem with game management ahead of their Premier League trip to Stoke.

The Reds have suffered two agonising draws in their last couple of outings - throwing away a 3-0 lead in the Champions League to draw with Sevilla before seeing another win go up in smoke after Chelsea equalised late on in the 1-1 draw at Anfield at the weekend.

Klopp and his charges have been accused of bottling games with their tendency to concede strikes in the final throes of matches but, in quotes published by the Liverpool Echo, the German offered an explanation as to why that wasn't the case.

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He said: “You can always say game management is an issue but if you think about the opponent, you have to say it’s not that easy.

“Chelsea brought on (Cesc) Fabregas, who is a completely different player to all the other players. In one moment, he plays a pass, I think nobody saw the space apart from Fabregas. That’s the situation, it’s really difficult.

“You need moments to adapt to it, to react on it, and in these moments the other side can score a goal. We lost the lead in two games but making a big story of it, I don’t get it.

“It isn’t that, it’s just the quality of the other team. You have to defend sometimes with luck but if you all want us to defend deeper, as many teams are doing in situations like this, they need luck. They need a crossbar, they need a post. We didn’t have it.

“We can always do better but in this specific game I don’t think it was possible to do it better."

Klopp also revealed his plans to continue rotating his squad ahead of the gruelling festive fixture schedule, and stated that none of his stars had been left disgruntled over not being selected lately.

He added: “So far, nobody did that. Maybe somebody will knock but that would not change the decision to be honest. It’s not about leaving players out.

“We do it because we want to use all of them as much as we can because we 100% believe in the quality of these players. They can only keep the quality and show the quality if we use them. That’s what I said and that’s what we will do.”