Jurgen Klopp comments suggest we’ll see Kostas Tsimikas return vs Ajax

Add as preferred source on Google

Jurgen Klopp’s comments suggest Kostas Tsimikas will return to the starting lineup against Ajax. The boss is trying to manage players’ fitness.

Jurgen Klopp said he’d 100% have substituted Andy Robertson against Brighton if he felt he could. After talking about the ‘risk’ of making a third sub, he explained how it affected Robertson.

“If we would have had five subs today, then I would have taken off Andy Robertson – 100%,” said Klopp in his post-match press conference.

“I had Kostas Tsimikas on the bench so he could play 15, 20 minutes.”

That, to us, sounds as though Robertson is in need of a break. He’s also one of the few players in the squad with a direct replacement right now.

So we’d feel confident saying that Tsimikas will face Ajax tomorrow. He played from the start against Atalanta last week, of course, and while he struggled at times, the potential was there to see.

He had energy, aggression and Tsimikas always looked willing to fight to push the team forward – even if little came off for him.

Given the importance of this fixture, Klopp may well go quite strong. Tsimikas may well be the only rotation player in the team, given is unable to rotate in many other places.

But he does deserve another go at things. Tsimikas has only played three games since his £12m arrival – one against Lincoln City, eight minutes at Atalanta, and from the start last week. There’s no consistency there, which will make it tough for him to ease into the side.

If Robertson needs a rest anyway, then Klopp has a chance to give him a little bit of a run. It would work in the boss’s favour, too.

Getting Tsimikas up to speed gives him another reliable player for December, which is set to be a difficult month. The schedule is packed full and the injury crisis makes it even tougher.

Now is the time to ease Tsimikas into things and bump up the available numbers. It certainly sounds like that’s the plan.