Jurgen Klopp says he so nearly started £35m Liverpool player vs City last night, changed his mind last minute

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Jurgen Klopp has admitted that he actually planned to start Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for Liverpool last night.

In quotes from liverpoolfc.com, the Reds boss revealed that illness had robbed Oxlade-Chamberlain of a starting spot. Coupled with the late loss of Roberto Firmino to injury, Liverpool didn’t end up lining up as they’d been practicing.

“From our point of view, we had to change late. Bobby only in the last session felt something, so he was out. Then we had other problems,” Klopp explained.

“We planned Oxlade to start and obviously he is in a good moment, then he got ill two days ago. This morning he was fine. There are different struggles you always have and against City you better should have a perfectly oiled machine available because, how I said, they always do little things differently which have a big impact and you have to adapt to that quickly.”

A real shame for Ox, who doesn’t get many chances to start for Liverpool these days.

The 29-year-old was well enough to make a substitute appearance, though. Coming on at half-time, he was almost instantly involved in Liverpool’s second goal, playing a perfect outside-of-the-boot ball for Darwin Nunez to tee up Mohamed Salah.

Ox shows he’s not done just yet

It says much about Oxlade-Chamberlain’s current status in the Liverpool squad that it wasn’t a surprise to see Fabio Carvalho start ahead of him last night.

However, upon coming on Ox soon reminded everyone of what he can offer.

Not only was the pass into Nunez inch-perfect and technically beautiful, but the footwork to create space for the pass was also brilliant.

The £35m man was in a tight area when Andy Robertson found him down the line. But a little shimmy of the hips and a little bit of magic on the ball made it possible for him to play the pass.

If he can stay fit, there’s no question that Oxlade-Chamberlain can offer something. In a Liverpool shirt, he regularly has. His last proper stint in the team came last January with Salah and Sadio Mane missing due to AFCON. Over the time, he carried a lot of Liverpool’s attacking threat and did really well doing so.

Since then, injury and lack of favour with Klopp has seen him rarely feature. But he now needs to put himself in the shop window. With a contract soon to run out, he won’t be at Liverpool too much longer. When he gets chances, he needs to show what he can do. It may not have been for as long as planned, but he did that last night.