Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has explained why he withdrew defender Virgil van Dijk in the first half in their Monday night 3-1 loss to Brentford.
Klopp hauled off Van Dijk, Kostas Tsimikas, and Harvey Elliott at the interval, replacing them with Joel Matip, Andy Robertson, and Naby Keita and the approach seems to have been a masterstroke when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain pulled a goal back but it wasn’t to be laster as Bryan Mbeumo put the game beyond their reach late on.
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“Hopefully not (an injury). Virgil felt his muscle a little and that is fine, he’s a good judge of these kinds of things. But I didn’t want to take any risk. The physios looked quite happy when I said we don’t take risks. I think it’s not an injury, it’s just he felt the intensity,” Klopp said of Van Dijk’s substitution.
“The other two things were tactical. We obviously have opportunities, we could bring Naby on, who I think played a really good game, and Robbo, and he was in the first action after half-time. He was what we needed, we needed that speed in behind. That was the reason for these two changes.”
In the first half, the Reds fell behind to an own goal from Ibrahima Konate before poor defending allowed Yoane Wissa to add a second before the half-time break.
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