Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp rues squad illness and confirms Dejan Lovren injury after FA Cup exit

REUTERS
David Lynch7 January 2019

Dejan Lovren suffered a hamstring injury during Liverpool's FA Cup exit at the hands of Wolves, Jurgen Klopp has confirmed.

The Croatian was replaced by Ki-Jana Hoever five minutes into the Reds' 2-1 defeat at Molineux on Monday after signalling to the bench that he would be unable to continue.

Any long-term absence for Lovren would represent a significant headache for Klopp with both Joel Matip and Joe Gomez yet to return to full training after collarbone and ankle injuries.

Asked about the defender's injury at full-time, Klopp said: "Hamstring [is] what I heard, without any signs before. I asked everybody - no signs, nothing, just out of the blue.

"That's the decision you have to make. I'm not sure what you all would have said if we bring immediately from the beginning, with our centre-half situation, is Fabinho and Ki-Jana.

REUTERS

"Then probably a few smart people would tell me that I don't respect the competition or whatever. We tried to do all the things. On the other side, it doesn't make sense to bring a 16-year-old boy from the start. We wait until he's completely ready, but did well.

"He came on and did well. Obviously that's how it sometimes starts when you are really needed. Then it's only about if you're good enough, not how old you are. He did well. That was all OK. That's it."

In Pictures | Wolves vs Liverpool | 07/01/2019

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Klopp made nine changes to the starting XI that suffered defeat at Manchester City last time out as his team turned their attentions to the world's oldest cup competition.

But the German explained he would have liked to have make fewer alterations only for illness to wipe out a significant section of his squad.

He continued: "For different reasons. After the City game we immediately had a few players who were ill, showed sore throat and all that you can have in this period of the year.

"A few of them were not even in after the City game. Pretty much all the players here today had little problems, apart from Ali. We had to make late changes. Yesterday, Adam was in our plans, like Hendo.

"Dejan was not in the plans - he should have only been on the bench. It happened what happened. It doesn't help a lot. Then we had to change again.

"We wanted to control the game because we were completely new, especially defensively. So it then makes sense that you keep the ball.

"The wind didn't help with that, to be honest. Obviously everybody on the pitch struggled with controlling the ball, first touch was very often not that good.

"So they lost a lot of balls, we lost a lot of balls. One of these balls we lost was a counter-attack and they score a goal. The second half we wanted to start new, finding a positive approach again, do it just a little bit better than the first half.

"We scored the goal and then Neves from long range with the wind from behind. Nice little shot. We hit the crossbar and the story of the game done.

Getty Images

"Then we brought Mo and Bobby, and it looked obviously a little bit different. The intensity of the last few games gave me the information that it's not possible to start with the three up front.

"Only Dejan played a lot of games in the last three or four weeks - pretty much all the games. That's why he was not [meant to be] involved. So he played today and he was injured. Hendo, yesterday.

"Millie had this injury already. That's the situation. Not too cool, but it was not really to change for today. That's the story of the game."

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