Jurgen Klopp says he would have ‘paid good money’ to have been a fly on the wall when Diego Simeone told Luis Suarez he would not be starting for Atletico Madrid against Liverpool in the Champions League.
Suarez scored Atleti’s second in the side’s 2-0 victory over Barcelona at the weekend – his sixth goal of the season in all competitions – but was surprisingly named among the substitutes versus his former club this evening.
The veteran Uruguayan is widely regarded as one of the finest players in Liverpool’s history and would no doubt have been desperate to prove himself against the Merseyside giants and show the world he’s still one of Europe’s top strikers at the age of 34.
But Suarez will instead hope to make an impact off the bench for the La Liga champions in tonight’s mouthwatering Group B clash at the Wanda Metropolitano.
Reacting to Atleti’s team ahead of kick-off, Klopp told BT Sport: ‘They have no real left-back on the pitch.
‘Kieran Trippier can play there, Geoffrey Kondogbia is tall and physically strong and can play in defence for sure. They will be deep and annoying but who cares.’
On Suarez’s shock omission, Klopp joked: ‘He is on the bench, I would have paid good money to be at the meeting when Diego Simeone told him he was not playing.
‘It is a strong team. They can change five times and we can do that.
‘Hopefully the game is so intense that we need it because then it will be a good one.’
The Liverpool head coach made just one change to his starting XI that thumped Watford at the weekend, with Alisson returning to the fold to replace Caoimhin Kelleher in goal.
‘We did not have much time to train. Monday we did a bit and we walk players through it,’ he explained.
‘Fabinho was already in Madrid so he could not train with us so Alisson in and the rest the same.
‘We can’t train five times and we know exactly what to do.
‘We don’t have to talk to much about doing different things here and there. It is the same again.’
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from Football – Metro https://ift.tt/3lVG42D
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