Match Day Thread vs Stoke (A)

Could stand him on the centre spot during the week to keep the birds off the pitch.

 

Jürgen Klopp has revealed that Jordan Henderson's latest injury lay-off could in fact be good news for Liverpool.


The captain was forced from the field an hour into last week's 1-0 win over Sunderland due to a recurrence of the heel pain that sidelined him earlier this season, missing Saturday's 2-0 defeat to West Ham United as a result.

However, speaking at his press conference ahead of Tuesday's Capital One Cup semi-final first-leg clash with Stoke City, Klopp was optimistic about Henderson's prognosis.

The German explained that his skipper's setback may even have relieved that troublesome pressure in his heel - though he warned it may take time to draw such a conclusion.

"We don't really know because we have to wait each day, each hour, each minute," Klopp said.

"The thing that happened with the tendon in the foot, it's good. It's painful but it's good.

"We hope that when the blood is out of the foot then the situation is solved but in this moment there is blood around the heel so it's not possible to train or to play.

"We hope it's not serious and we don't have to wait because we cannot do more. He's having treatment and, everything we can do to bring the blood out of the foot, we are doing.

"But we cannot rush more, it's time we need."

Klopp also confirmed that striker Daniel Sturridge will miss out on the clash with Mark Hughes' men at the Britannia Stadium.

The No.15 has, in the manager's words, been working through a 'mini pre-season' in recent weeks, but he will only be considered for a comeback once he has completed a number of consecutive training sessions.

The boss added: "Maybe you have the feeling that we trained now for three weeks with Daniel and say every day, 'more, more, more, more', and every day he's fitter and fitter and in the end I say, 'no, I wait'.

"It's not like this. Daniel had some problems in these weeks, not serious, but then he could not make the next session and we had to wait a day or something like this.

"[It's] how a pre-season can be. It's a pre-season without games so it should not happen too much but some little things happened, we always have to handle this.

"It's not a row of sessions and now we are here. I'm the first who will pick him when he's available, when he's ready for this, I will never hold him back.

"In this moment because he didn't have one session with the team, which was the usual plan for this week, he's not available.

"What we are trying to do now is to fill his body with energy and strength and everything, that's what we have to do.

"It would be easy for me to say, 'come on, let's try, we have problems, we don't score enough goals, bring him and let's see what happens', but that's where we have to be patient. We have to wait."

Klopp went on to admit that he has little room for manoeuvre when it comes to squad rotation ahead of Tuesday's game, with a spate of injuries having made it hard for him to freshen things up.

He explained: "We don't have that much opportunity for [changes]. It's not that we have six, seven, eight players to change in this moment, we have always all the squad with us.

We first of all have to react to the impact the last game had on the players then we have to decide. At the end, it's always that we go to this game and want to win and for this we make the squad.

"I cannot ignore the situation in the team after this number of games so we have to wait a little bit and use each hour.

"The session today is not a real season, it's only two days after the game. So, for sure, it's not possible to make an intensive training.

"I have to talk to Andy [Massey], the doctor, to Chris [Morgan], our head of physiotherapy, and we have to make decisions together."


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Expect little change. Is Milner available?

 

Maybe. he is supposedly in training.

It's basically just a question of which of the 3 failed no 10s plays behind poor abused Christian the flop striker who's our leading scorer.

Back 5 pick themselves, midfield turds pick themselves. It's really just will milner and lallana play or will Firmino or ibe.

I'd take 0-0 right now I can tell you.

 

He has one goal per 3 game ratio (and one of those was wrongly allowed)...

... That's hardly prolific even if he is our top striker at the club. Shows how desperate we are for a new forward.

Usually strikers who only get 1 goal per 3 games have something extra to offer.... Like assists, or creating space, or taking set pieces.

 

1 in 3 when no one passes to him

And the offside goal was attempted sabotage by Coutinho, Benteke did nothing wrong at all

 

nah desperate for a bit of love and a decent set of players behind him.

 

nah desperate for a bit of love and a decent set of players behind him.

 

So why are they not passing to him?

Is it because:

A) He isn't in position,
B) They think he's useless, or
C) He eats egg sandwiches in the changing rooms?

 

Shock the whole team is muck on a stick.

Anyone thinking just take out benteke and we will be fine is deluded.... sorry...

 

Nobody is saying that. What we are saying is that the strengths of the 3 players behind the striker don't align with Benteke's strengths. Benteke wants crosses and people running beyond him, none of our attacking midfielders are able to do that on a regular basis. Our attacking midfielders want a striker that is constantly on the move trying to get in behind defenders, Benteke can't do that.

 

Simply removing Benteke won't help.

We need to put someone else on in addition to removing Benteke or we would be a man short.




I don't dislike big Ben, I think he's useful in some games and useless in others. He should be a plan B forward not our main starting striker.

He usually seems to be better as a sub too when teams are getting a little tired and giving more space.

 

Who would have thought we would be missing Ings so badly.

 

Yep

 

I would actually like to see us line up:

-------------------Mignolet
Clyne------Lovren-----Sakho------Smith
---------------Lucas----Can
---Milner------Coutinho------Moreno
------------------Benteke

Smith deserves a start or two this week and with Moreno playing advanced, maybe Benteke will get some more crosses coming his way as we have no choice but to play him. Think we need Milner's experience, should he be fit enough.

 

Yeah... or on other words take out benteke and all will be fine.

It's called Watford away.

Stoke will paste us today if the midfield cannot string two passes together.

We ball hog, don't look for quick ball and anyone would struggle in those conditions.

Simple as.

Put Firmino up there, go right ahead but don't he shocked if he's anonymous while the others do exactly the same things they've done since the last league cup game. Dunno why but they've just been total dross since.

 

It might actually work for this stoke game.... basically could be two Banks of 4 and let coutinho wander about.

It would be something different and show a desire to shut the game down which is what we need here.

We need those stoke front 4 shut out until we get back to anfield

 

As I said what you describe was tried at Watford and laughed off the park.

Didn't help that bogdan dropped a clanger.


But which was the one off city or Watford. ..... Hmmm. ...

Watford denied space, city made shed loads of it for us by not tracking back at all.

You'd be right in guessing I'm leaning to city being the one off based on the other games since.

And no one player in benteke playing in some games doesn't mean he upsets the apple cart. The others have been total ****ing ****e

 

I wouldn't play Benteke. Give him a rest and play the match without a dedicated striker. That would provide more questions for the Stoke defence, who proably were expecting just to mark CB.

The Stoke front 3 are currently bang on form and I think our defence will do very well to contain them. If we let one in in the first 15 minutes, I can see us conceding a few in this match.

 

We'll prob get beaten either way frankly.

The stoke guys have been mixed in results, they look very tasty though.

I agree if we don't get it tight we will lose by 2 or 3.

 

the only way for LFC to win this game is the ENTIRE 11 play better.

singling out benteke is pointless.

If he didn't play and LFC won it would not be because benteke didn't play. it would be beacuse the 11 who did play played a hell of a lot better than they did v west brom, watford, newcastle or last week against west ham.... or when we did win v sunderland.

The ENTIRE 11 have to perform much much better right around the park. Klopp keeps calling for more and they keep letting us down.

In short whoever plays has to up their game by at least 50%. If they do that and benteke is not there fine but its not simply cos benteke is not there. that kind of simplistic analysis is for the likes of jamie redknapp types.