Jurgen Klopp has admitted, after Liverpool’s 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace, that two of his midfielders may be suffering after being overworked in recent weeks.
The Reds have hit the worst run of form at the worst possible time in the season, with only three wins in their last eight and now winless in their last three.
Last week brought back-to-back defeats to Atalanta and Crystal Palace, leaving their chances of silverware in the Premier League and Europa League increasingly slim.
While they continue to create chances, Liverpool are both failing to keep clean sheets and more often than not failing to finish moves, with a tired midfield at the heart of their issue.
Speaking after the defeat to Palace, Klopp explained that Wataru Endo and Alexis Mac Allister have been overused of late – but insisted that “had to play.”
“I see the same game as you do,” he told reporters.
“Did Wataru and Macca play now a little bit too much in the last few weeks? Maybe. They were the two most-used, especially Macca.
“Guys came back from injury and I would say Curt, today, really good. Dom came back from injury, stuff like this, kind of a rhythm.
“I think for the situation Trent is in, that was really good, but I don’t think he could now play 120 minutes, let me say it like that.
“Robbo came back from injury, all these kinds of things.
“So a couple of players had to play a lot, and a couple of players were always interrupted, that’s the big thing for us, if we find now for that the real answer.
“We just have to make sure that we don’t think about where we are coming from, injured or not, and we just have to make sure we find a way to beat the specific opponent in front of us.”
Just as with his comments on the impact of two dismal results against Man United, Klopp’s words on players returning from injury again hinted at a concern over mentality.
With only six games left to play in the Premier League and potentially just one in the Europa League, now is the time to push Liverpool over the finish line at all costs.
“It’s always like this, for winning, as a manager you find a lot of explanations, this was great, this was great; when you lose, it’s not as easy to find these things,” Klopp continued.
“It might be obvious, but it’s now not about putting the finger on that or that or that, the solution is always being really together on the pitch.
“For us, where we are, we got because we were, against the ball, an absolute machine. That’s what we have to be.
“In that moment, we have the rhythm, we have the momentum in the game, it’s difficult for the opponent – they don’t feel great, we feel much better – and then these boys can really play football.
“Today they showed that, in a really difficult situation, they can do that.
“That was good, but it doesn’t feel great anyway now, because we lost the game and we planned this day completely differently.
“But here we are, and now we have to deal with that.”
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