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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp believes his Manchester United counterpart Ole Gunnar Solskjaer had every right to express his annoyance at the match scheduling, revealing that he met with the Premier League to voice similar complaints.
Trent Alexander-Arnold limped off during the defending champions’ 1-1 draw at Manchester City on Sunday, the latest in a long line of injury casualties in the division that is only expected to skyrocket with heavy workload during a condensed period.
Solskjaer lost Luke Shaw to a hamstring problem in United’s 3-1 road win against Everton, and Marcus Rashford and Victor Lindelof also suffered blows.
The Norwegian used his post-match media duties to break the schedule. “We were prepared to fail,” he said.
“The start time set us up to fail. We’ve been to Turkey, we played a lot of games this season, we came back Thursday morning and we played Saturday lunchtime, it’s a total disaster. “
And when Klopp was asked his thoughts on the matter, he replied: “Ole was right. We and City play on Tuesday, so there are always two teams that play on Tuesday and two teams that play on Wednesday.
Klopp is concerned about the current workload of the players
(Getty)
“If Tuesday’s teams are in contention now for the early start on Saturday that’s fine. It’s not nice, but it’s okay.
“But Wednesday’s teams shouldn’t even be considered for that game, just no.
“Sky, BT, Premier League, BBC, whoever, they have to talk. We can’t deal with that situation like we always did before. It is very important that the FA is involved.
“Tonight we lost Trent Alexander-Arnold and I’m pretty sure Gareth Southgate is not well [with that]. If we continue like this and hopefully we can play one euro in the summer, if they pass, let’s see who will be part of that, which players.
“Everyone has to come to the table. Okay, we found the solution to keep playing, that’s great, but now we can’t stop thinking. We have to start thinking of new things. “
Klopp detailed a discussion he had with the Premier League on the matter. “I spoke indirectly two weeks ago, the club organized a meeting for me and they told me ‘we can’t change it because it’s not about Man United, it’s not about Liverpool, it’s not about City.’
“Let me put it like that. We played after the last international break at 12.30 at Everton. My players were on Wednesday night, some of them, in Peru. Then you play at 12.30. This kind of thing shouldn’t happen.
“I understand one hundred percent the need for television, one hundred percent. But the Premier League also needs to further fulfill the position of the players’ unity. Everything changed except for the list of matches.
“Usually in a season we all have October, November and then a very, very complicated December. This year, October is like December, November is like December, and December is still like December. This intensity is really difficult. It is completely normal that you play on Saturday, it is 12:30 which is the killer.
“Tottenham played at Ludogorets on Thursday night and played today at 12.
“With all due respect to West Brom, but Tottenham won it late because you need a lot more time and all that. People might like it and think, ‘Okay, it’s a proper competition, it gives other teams a chance.’
“The only problem is that we hurt the players. We can’t keep players in shape with that. That is really the problem. It’s not about us, it’s about the parties. We need to get back to talking about the five subs. If still, I don’t know, 14 teams say, I’m not sure they will say, that five substitutes shouldn’t happen, then at least leave us five times when we meet, the top six against each other. .
“I have no idea if that is possible, but we have to find solutions because it is very difficult this year. We get it, we want to play soccer 100 percent with everything we have, we need to play soccer, it’s great for people, it’s great for us, everything is fine. “
