Jurgen Klopp fears Liverpool’s fixture pile-up after Carabao Cup win
Written by News on 31/10/2019
Jurgen Klopp has expressed his concerns over Liverpool’s fixture pile-up, after his side beat Arsenal to progress to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.
Liverpool are due to play Aston Villa away in the last eight on December 17 or 18, but are already set to play their first game in the Club World Cup, as last season’s Champions League winners, on December 18 in Qatar.
The EFL said on Thursday morning it is in discussions with Liverpool to “identify an alternative date” with the club over their Carabao Cup quarter-final tie.
The Premier League leaders also have a league game with West Ham to be rescheduled due to their visit to Asia, and have six midweek fixtures in a row pencilled in between November 27 and January 2.
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- Carabao Cup QF: Oxford vs Man City; Man Utd vs Colchester
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Following their penalty shoot-out win over Arsenal in round four, Klopp told Sky Sports: “It shows the problem we have in the Premier League that no one cares about things like this, so that’s how it is.
“The competition is there, we play the game, if we have no time for the next round we cannot change it.
“Fifa tells us we have to go to the Club World Cup, the Premier League tell us we have to play in the Carabao Cup so we try to play it, but if we don’t find time it will not happen in our winter break or whatever they give us, because we need that.
“So, I don’t care to be honest. It just shows what the problem is. Everybody wants us to play constantly, we’ve just thought about tonight – we’re not thinking about the next round.”
In his post-match press conference, he added: “If they don’t find a place for us, an appropriate place, not 3pm on Christmas Day or something, then we don’t play. They have to make it. You have to think about these things – if you have a fixture list, where one team cannot be part of all the games, then you have to think about it.
“Hopefully it starts now. I think it’s fair that this problem is obvious now. We will not be the victim of this problem. We played tonight, we want to win it, if they don’t find a proper date for us, we cannot play the next round and whoever our opponent is will go through, or Arsenal.”
Klopp: We take Carabao Cup seriously
When Liverpool’s line-up to face Arsenal was announced ahead of kick-off, Klopp was fully anticipating accusations that he wasn’t taking the competition seriously after making 11 changes from their weekend win over Tottenham.
But he told Sky Sports: “It’s not true. We cannot do it differently, we had to make a lot of changes, but we made them because we trust the boys. How they played tonight, I loved it, really.
“In the end, it was about encouragement to get them to keep going. That was the job to do and they did, with the team they had tonight having 60, 65 per cent possession is crazy.
“The mistakes we made was because we were too open, but that’s how it is. We want to be fluent, we are not used to playing with each other and that can happen.
“What I wished for the boys that they can have a game to remember, and that’s what happened.”
Carabao Cup quarter-final draw
- Oxford vs Manchester City
- Manchester United vs Colchester
- Aston Villa vs Liverpool
- Everton vs Leicester
(c) Sky Sports 2019: Jurgen Klopp fears Liverpool’s fixture pile-up after Carabao Cup win
