Jürgen Klopp Resigned to Two-Legged Semi-Final

The boss is even willing to cede home advantage to make it an one-legged tie, but concedes that nothing is likely to change.

Fresh off Liverpool FC’s thrilling penalty shoot-out victory over Leicester City, they were drawn with Arsenal in the Semi-Finals. The two-legged affair will be played in the weeks commencing 3 and 10 January. This comes right after a run of five matches in 12 days for Liverpool. Jürgen Klopp, who again criticised the two-day gaps behind fixtures during the matchdays on Boxing Day and the 28th, is naturally not very keen on the additional burden of an extra game on the players.

“I think it would be better with one game absolutely, but obviously what I say is not too important. If there are two games, then we will play two games. But it would be helpful if there was only one, true.”

“The draw has us at Arsenal, I’m fine with that, we play there and see who is better and go for it. I don’t just speak about player welfare this year, I have been speaking about it for six years or maybe longer. If the things I say would help more, I would say it much more often. But it doesn’t help.”

“The only thing I do with these messages is I create headlines. They never arrive at the right places. Tomorrow we have a meeting at 4 pm but it’s with the Premier League and not with the EFL, I’m not sure if they are involved or not. I said it before, I would prefer only one semi-final. But I can’t see any kind of changes actually.”

Having made 10 changes for the quarter-final with three academy players in his starting line-up and five on the bench for the game against Leicester, one can expect the rotation to continue against Arsenal. Hopefully, the COVID-19 situation within the club will have eased by then, so the boss can rotate very more freely.