Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has admitted that he plans to rotate players against AC Milan to avoid being ‘smashed’ by the medical team.
The Rossoneri know what they need to reach the round of 16 of the competition as they must first beat Liverpool at San Siro tomorrow night and then hope for a draw in Portugal in the game between Porto and Atletico Madrid, or a win for the away side but by an equal or lesser margin that Milan.
As a result, there are some hoping that Klopp does some rotating, and the Liverpool Echo (via Twitter) claims that they are expected to field a much-changed side on Tuesday when they take on Milan with the likes of Kostas Tsimikas, Ibrahima Konate, Neco Williams and Tyler Morton all potentially starting.
Klopp spoke to the media today in his pre-match press conference and admitted that rotation is the plan.
“We have to rotate and we will rotate, that’s clear. The medical department would smash me if we played the same side again and we know that we will make changes,” he said (via LiverpoolOffside).
“But it’s always like this. When you get fresh legs in you can play a higher energy game and have a better game, and I cannot change everyone. We need to still have players on the pitch and the players all understand this.
“We want to field the best possible squad for the situation we’re in. We’ve played five games in the last 14 days which is a lot and after the Milan game we play a similar amount of games in a similar amount of time.”
Will Salah play? “I can’t change them all, we will still have to put eleven players on the team. We’ll see, we also need to understand the situation, we need to get the players to turn and make sure that the best team is on the pitch.”
Passion for Milan is everything. How much can the passion of a player like Ibra and a stadium like San Siro change things compared to the first leg?
“Ibrahimovic is a great player. Ibra, Salah, San Siro? I can’t wait to play at San Siro, it’s the first time for me. It’s not the first time we’ve played against Ibra, it will be a match for great players.”
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Our med team instead smashed the team.
I hope one day Klopp will lead Milan, with adequate budget.