Klopp–Why I substituted Salah early during 1-0 defeat

 

Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp, has explained why he substituted forward, Mohamed Salah, early during his side’s 1-0 defeat against Chelsea on Thursday night at Anfield.

Klopp made a surprise decision to replace Salah with Diogo Jota after just 62 minutes during the encounter.

Salah was clearly unhappy with Klopp’s call as the former AS Roma shook his head on Liverpool’s bench.

Klopp is now saying that he substituted Salah because he had concerns over the Egyptian international suffering from fatigue during Liverpool’s defeat to Chelsea.

Mason Mount’s goal in the first half gave Thomas Tuchel’s side all three points against Liverpool.

Klopp told Sky Sports: “I just brought on flesh legs. Mo [Salah] looked like today, it’s not very often… he suffered a bit, he played a lot of games.

“I could have taken off Sadio or Bobby, that is all clear, but at that moment, it looked like Mo suffered the most.

“Oxlade trains really well, so you have to respect that as well and to show that you see it, these kinds of things.

“Milly [Milner] trains really good. We could not accept a second goal. We were not compact enough, so that’s why we brought on Milly, wake them all up.

“From a football point of view, of course, we could have brought Naby [Keita] that’s clear as well.”