Injuries are now no crisis for Klopp at Liverpool…

First came James Milner, who was spared the rest of a nervous draw with Manchester City after limping off in the first half. Then, to add insult to mounting injuries, Virgil van Dijk similarly fell by the wayside in a competition Jurgen Klopp had previously described as “senseless”.

The German’s prescience will have been no consolation. “It’s tough times for the boys, eh?” he said after that City stalemate. “We have to start thinking about the players. We hope that they come back healthy and play these easy competitions, the Premier League, the Champions League and all this.”

With Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and now Naby Keita crowding a busy treatment room at Anfield, Klopp would be forgiven for cursing his luck. Liverpool are third in the Premier League table and unbeaten, having already faced both their direct rivals for the title, and they have six more games in the space of three weeks before the familiar speed bump of an international break appears once again on the horizon.

Yet this is precisely what the manager planned for. Klopp embarked on an extensive and expensive summer rebuild of his squad to take them to the next level: from perennial bridesmaid to blushing bride. He cannot plan for all eventualities on the big day and then complain when it starts raining.

If this is the worst time for an injury headache, Klopp should be thankful that he stocked up on paracetamol months ago. Liverpool motored to the Champions League final in May, added another layer of first-team gloss with the signing of Alisson, then realised the importance of having a couple of spare tyres in case of an emergency.

“We have to strengthen the squad,” the German insisted in May. “Finding players that will improve the squad 200 per cent will be difficult but we have do some things to make the squad bigger.” And make the squad bigger he did. Naby Keita, Fabinho and Xherdan Shaqiri arrived, but this was not a case of quantity over quality. Each player offered something new, a different dimension and style.

“From our perspective, he is someone who makes a big difference to the squad and team,” Klopp said when Shaqiri signed. “He can fit in so many positions in our system. He gives us greater flexibility in how we can use our current players also.”

This is a manager and a club learning from past painful experiences. The losses of Mane and Philippe Coutinho during the winter period of the 2016/17 season was almost catastrophic, with Liverpool winning just one of their first ten games of 2017 – a 1-0 FA Cup third-round replay victory against Plymouth. “I think we can all agree that if we could have played our first 12 or 13 for the whole season, and we are only six, seven, eight points away from the very interesting region of the table, then it’s not unlikely that it could have worked,” Klopp would note, ruing a potential title bid scuppered by injuries.

Last season, few expected Liverpool to play 56 games in all competitions; fewer still would have expected seven outfielders to start 75% of those games. There was at least an element of fortune involved in avoiding serious injury until Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was struck down in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final.

In both Klopp’s two previous full seasons, losing his best centre-half, two elite midfielders and two wonderful forwards in one fell swoop would have been disastrous, and many clubs would struggle to cope with the drop in quality. Divock Origi was Liverpool’s chief deputy in 2016/17, and Dominic Solanke played that role in 2017/18. The Reds can now call on a confident and fit Daniel Sturridge or a hungry and dynamic Shaqiri.

It even extends to midfield, where the absence of Milner and Keita can be offset by the form of Georginio Wijnaldum, the return of Adam Lallana and the prospect of Fabinho. In defence, the emergence of Joe Gomez has demoted Dejan Lovren to back-up; it is a far cry from when Joel Matip, Ragnar Klavan and Lucas Leiva were waiting in the wings.

Recent reports suggest Milner, Van Dijk and Salah are ahead of schedule with regards to their returns, but there is no need to risk them. Liverpool face Huddersfield and Cardiff in their next two Premier League matches, sandwiching the Champions League visit of Red Star. If Klopp is rushing players back for those fixtures, then his summer investment was as “senseless” as the competition he so derides.

Matt Stead

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