Manchester City wouldn’t have won the Premier League with Liverpool’s injuries”, claims Jurgen Klopp

Manchester City wouldn’t have won the Premier League with Liverpool’s injuries”, claims Jurgen Klopp

Van Dijk has missed the enire season for Liverpool due to his ACL tear

Manchester City have secured the Premier League this season, but Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp believes they would not have won if they had to deal with injury problems like Liverpool. Liverpool have had a torrid season, losing a number of defenders due to injuries throughout the campaign.

The situation had worsened so much so, that Jurgen Klopp had to sign 2 defenders in the winter transfer market to bolster his ailing squad. Klopp fielded his youth team defenders and often defensive midfielders in Fabinho and Henderson to make up for their loss in defence.

Jurgen Klopp and Liverpool have had a torrid season with injuries

Injuries to key players have hurt Liverpool this season
Injuries to key players have hurt Liverpool this season

Klopp’s main centre-back Virgil Van dijk suffered an ACL tear in October and Joe Gomez his defensive partner also suffered a long term injury which ruled him out of the season. Even Jordan Henderson, Fabinho and new recruit Diogo Jota suffered major injuries which ruled them out for most of the season.

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Pep Guardiola on the other hand, has not had to deal with major injury crisis and has often had a settled squad of players to bank upon throughout the season.

Talking about their campaign, Klopp said: “I said when we lost our centre-halves, all of them pretty much, we broke our leg, but we could still win games. It was not always in the most convincing fashion but we were still winning games, scoring.”

“Then we had to – and we had to at that time – make midfielders into centre-halves and it broke our spine. Then the whole setup was gone. The young boys were not ready to play at centre-half, the midfielders had to at times play at centre-half,” he added.

“It is how I said before this year, with the amount of injuries we have had, it was not the year to become champions. No chance. For nobody,” Klopp said before Sunday’s final league game against Crystal Palace.

The inexperienced duo of Nat Philips and Ozan Kabak have filled in at centre-back for most of the season
The inexperienced duo of Nat Philips and Ozan Kabak have filled in at centre-back for most of the season

“As good as they are, if (Manchester) City have their three centre-halves out, no,” they don’t win the league. “Three centre-halves of United, no.”

‘We have fought back a bit, accepted the difficulties and made the best of it, and if we win on Sunday, and if we qualify for the Champions League, then we made the best of it. That is it.

Liverpool, go into the final day of the Premier League season needing a victory against Crystal Palace to qualify for the Champions League next season. They are currently occupying the 4th spot with 66 points.

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