Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool have turned their attention to Manchester United after their Europa League defeat to Royal Union Saint Gilroy.
The Reds lost 2-1 to Belgium, who topped Group E and qualified for the play-offs before kick-off.
As a result, Klopp became the youngest European player in the club’s history at the age of 21.9. Jarell Quanza scored his first goal for the club in the first half equalizer.
But despite Klopp having the luxury of keeping Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Alisson Becker on Merseyside, Liverpool were in second place for most of the game. The Premier League leaders now prepare to face bitter rivals United. Anfield (16:30 GMT) on Sunday. And Klopp was delighted not to pick up any further injuries against United after a “very intense” performance.”I think we all saw the same game,” said the Liverpool manager. “For us it was a deserved victory for Union”. We’re told the first goal could have been offside, but no one can tell. We will see. But who cares? They were well prepared, they were top of the table, they played stronger, they had a full team mix, so I think the changes we made, the number of changes, were too much for the pace. We had to step up our game.
I’m very happy that we played more in the second half and that we managed to put in a real performance at the end. Before that, honestly, it was very difficult to give us the ball and win the ball on the counter attack. “It was very intense on a very difficult pitch, but it wasn’t good and you could see how intense it was. Several players tried out for the Union. We could have equalized at the end and it would have been nice. I would like to make some points here.
For some it was a serious experience, for others they just liked the pace. I did well and as a team they are currently at the top of the Belgian table. It’s definitely not a fair assessment to say we’re going to come here and bring players. Very difficult. But I thought we were trying and that was okay. No one was hurt, no one was hurt, so we’ll get better and go home and then we’ll go again. Ibrahima Konate was replaced by Joe Gomez after half-time against Union.
However, this was not due to injury and Liverpool had planned this change before the game, replacing Wataru Endo with Ryan Gravenburch at half-time. “We just wanted to share the intensity,” added Klopp. If you had the chance, would you play Joe Gomez 90 or Ibow 90? [I decided] No. 45 and No. 45, and midfielder.
These changes were planned before the match regardless of the result. We tried. It was clear that if Jarrell was going to keep playing, he was going to keep playing. That was the idea.”Alexis McAllister (knee), Andy Robertson (shoulder), Diogo Lotta (hamstring), Thiago Alcantara (thigh), Stefan Baicetic (calf) and Joel Matip (ACL) are all out for Liverpool.
