Jurgen Klopp has made his midfield plans clear, hinting Liverpool could change the centre of the park for the trip to Man United.
Those options give Klopp plenty of choice in terms of which attributes to select and rely on for any given game, and the boss told LiverpoolFC.com that the squad depth in that area will be utilised accordingly-and players must accept it.
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“I expect that the players just understand it. It’s a typical thing.
“I will not explain to everyone why they don’t start because they will all start games.
“We don’t have to talk about Ox at the moment because he needs a bit of time. He looks so good in training but we need to make him resistant for all the things that are coming up.
“For all the others I expect them to understand it. You cannot always have three players in midfield and they play and I have to wrap them in cotton wool – ‘Oh come on please, don’t do this step and this step’ or ‘Oh you feel something, come off training.’
“Now we have five or six players for midfield and that’s exactly how it should be.”
With specific regard to Sunday's game at Old Trafford, further comments from the boss hint at who could be involved.
At this point, he’s almost certainly guaranteed a starting spot, meaning the captain will probably either make way and move to the bench or else alter his role slightly.
“Of course they cannot start all the time. If somebody makes a story of that, I’m not interested.
“If somebody is not happy with that, I'm OK but you have to be ready for the next game and the next game is coming on Wednesday. That's just how it should be.”
The Fabinho-Keita-Wijnaldum triumvirate played superbly against Bournemouth and led to calls for it to be the go-to midfield trident for most matches for the remainder of the campaign.
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What's almost certain is that Klopp will need more than just his starting 11 if the Reds are to beat Man United meaning even those who start on the bench can still play a vital role-and will then, as the boss says, be needed for the following matches too.
This article was most recently revised and updated 4 years ago
