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The final whistle had just sounded at Anfield when Jurgen Klopp went back on offense.
In his continuing quest for change, the Liverpool manager urged, or rather demanded, that Sky Sports and BT Sport reach a compromise that is better suited to footballers who want their ratings to skyrocket this season.
Klopp’s calls for the five-substitute rule review and television game scheduling have become a key theme this season like no other, but his latest statement on Sunday night was as profound as ever. .
“It was never about us when I talked about it, it was about all the players,” Klopp reiterated to Sky Sports after the 3-0 win at Leicester.
The Reds boss had just seen his team patched up losing another player in Naby Keita and was in a low mood to celebrate the result as his injury crisis somehow got worse.
“If you don’t start talking to BT [Sport] we are all done.
“Sky and BT have to talk because if we continue playing on Wednesday and Saturday [at] 12:30, I’m not sure if we’re going to finish the season with 11 players.
“I know [the broadcasters] I don’t care and that’s the problem. We have discussed it for a long time and nothing has happened. “
The well-being of the player, Klopp insists very sincerely, is his only thought for this well-defined point of view.
Nor can it be argued that this particular stance is new or born out of frustration at losing star players.
After all, this is a manager who once argued that “if we handle them like horses, then we will have horses” because of an injury to the unknown Jordan Rossiter.
Speaking in 2015, Klopp said: “I didn’t want to start my first week at Melwood with a complaint, but it can’t be normal to play three games in five days, even in England.
“What can I say? These young players are our future.”
So clearly, Klopp’s interest in the well-being of the players is not an orderly narrative designed as a smokescreen to seek an advantage in the minefield that is the tight schedule.
No, the German’s continuous protests are genuine when he says: “I’m not talking about Liverpool, I’m talking about all football players.”
Klopp, like his Manchester United counterpart Ole Gunnar Solsjaker, has lamented the idea of playing on a Wednesday night and a Saturday morning in the same week.
However, it is a prospect he will face this week when he travels to Brighton for the 12.30pm kick-off after hosting Atalanta in the Champions League.
“This is a huge problem,” says Klopp. “Wednesday and Saturday at 12:30 pm is a problem for the station and nothing else.
But perhaps the timing headaches and injuries that have since turned into a migraine for Klopp can ease after Wednesday night’s game with the Italians at Anfield.
Three points against a team that was so emphatically swept in Bergamo earlier this month brings the Reds to 12 points in Group D of the Champions League.
It would mean that two of the remaining nine games of 2020 would essentially be redundant for the Reds, giving Klopp ample opportunity to rest and rotate.
With matches in the Premier League against players like Wolves and Tottenham in the coming weeks, the opportunity to give their great weapons a break in the Champions League could be vital.
Get the latest injury and team news from Liverpool as Klopp grapples with the selection dilemma, plus the latest news and breakdown of what’s next for the Reds.
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After Wednesday’s game, Liverpool host Ajax on December 1 before the conclusion of the group stage in Denmark against Midtjylland eight days later.
Ajax’s failure to beat the Danes in Amsterdam means that the Reds will advance to the knockout stages for the fourth consecutive season, should they triumph against Gian Piero Gasperini’s men.
That could give Klopp’s injured team some much-needed respite with 10 games still to be played before the turn of the year.
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