Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp explained his choice to replace Takumi Minamino in the Goodison derby at half-time-as he praised Naby Keita ‘s performance.
Minamino was given a first Premier League start in Sunday night’s goalless draw at Everton.
In spite of an encouraging first-half display, the Japanese international was replaced by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain during the interval.
And Klopp alluded to the temporary standard change of allowing five replacements as the reason behind the switch.
“I had the idea before the game that I wanted to change early and misuse the open doors that five changes could give us. We’ve been contemplating why waiting for tired legs when you can put on five players. That wasn’t 100 percent working. Taki has been at the game. It was somewhat hard at the start, yet then he was in the game. The move was a simple idea from me at half-time. It had nothing to do with Taki’s first-half achievement,” he said.
Keita was Liverpool’s best midfielder in an in any case poor attacking display from the Reds-simply the second time they have battled to score in the Premier League this season. Klopp saw his performance before being replaced by Gini Wijnaldum midway during that time half.
The Reds manager said: “Naby looked great. He glanced great in training without a doubt and that’s the reason he played today. We may also put on Gini Wijnaldum. We had to attempt it because we thought about how to handle the force. We play again against Crystal Palace in three days. On the off chance that today we played 11 players for an hour and a half, and then asked them to go on Wednesday again, at that point I’d have a real issue.”
“You can’t underestimate that we’re playing two games in three days, after about a month of pre-season and nine weeks of break previously. That’s the reason we have to think a little before we get into an issue. We attempted that, yet at long last, you never will be fine. However, Naby ‘s performance was truly great.”
