There is no respite for Liverpool. After winning the Carabao Cup on Sunday night, the Reds are once again back in action on Wednesday night. This time in the FA Cup at Anfield against Championship side Southampton.
It’s a tie that comes so close in between a major final and a Premier League fixture, which Liverpool will play against Nottingham Forest on Saturday, that the Reds are expected to make changes. Klopp will take the competition seriously. However, he will not risk the fitness of his players.
That means Southampton could be an opportunity for a plethora of young Liverpool players to make their mark for the club once again. Several impressed in the Carabao Cup final, but more could now also make their debuts against a side who are one of the best in the Championship at the moment.
Speaking ahead of the game, Klopp also revealed he was surprised that one of his other prospects wasn’t back playing yet with the squad after seeing him at the training centre.
Jurgen Klopp on Stefan Bajcetic latest
Speaking in his official press conference, Klopp was asked about the latest surrounding Stefan Bajcetic’s fitness. The Spain U21 international was spotted during the celebrations in Liverpool’s Carabao Cup final victory. However he hasn’t been in action for several months now due to persistent growing problems.
“I had lunch here [the AXA training centre], I saw him training,” Klopp said as per the club’s official YouTube channel. “I sat there and thought why is he not playing?”
“So obviously he is gaining fitness now, he’s running around like wow! He’s doing everything but he didn’t get the green light yet for us, for the team training, and there’s nobody in this building who wants to hold him back so there might be some reasons. He’s pain free, completely pain free, which is obviously the most important thing.
“All the checks we made, like the scans again, the bone looks good, so that’s all fine. He’s just doing the stuff he is doing. Now we have to make sure when we use him again in normal training because the difficulty of football is that it’s such a complex sport for the body, not only that you have to turn yourself but somebody else will turn you and jump into you and you have to be ready for all these kinds of things. You have to do things with high speed, slow down and go again. These kinds of things. We try as much as we can recreate these things in the rehab sessions but in the end we cannot put in ten other players or more to recreate a proper game situation. So that’s where we are. For me he looks good. But how good I cannot decide that.”
This sounds like a positive update from Klopp about Bajcetic. Clearly, the youngster is still growing into his body and Liverpool want to be careful not to exert him too much. At this stage that is the most important thing for his development.
When he is ready, we cannot wait to see him back on the pitch. As Klopp has described in the past, he is an ‘incredible’ talent.
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