Jurgen Klopp has said that Joel Matip won’t be the solution to Liverpool’s defensive worries. Matip is expected to feature against Southampton in the EFL Cup semifinal second leg.
Matip wasn’t part of the starting lineup for the side that was beaten by Swansea. Fernando Llorente scored a brace and Gylfi Sigurdsson scored the third as the Reds dropped to fourth place, 10 points adrift of league leaders Chelsea.
Klopp did introduce Matip but almost in the dying minutes of the game and that too as a centre forward. The Cameroon defender received a very late confirmation from FIFA over his participation and Klopp didn’t want to take a risk by unleashing the player into the first team.
Klopp said, “Of course, it’s good because he is a really good player, but he was injured for six weeks.
The other players had to play nearly all the time, that’s more the problem in this time – not that Joel cannot play all of the time.
“But I understand football in a different way; the final mistake in the game sometimes it’s the goalkeeper, sometimes it’s the defender, sometimes it’s somebody else, but most of the time there are seven or eight players involved – that’s the defending I talk about.
“Everybody is responsible for everything and if you avoid this pass then your team-mate cannot make the last mistake. That’s how we understand it, so it is not about one player or something.
“It’s clear what we’ve done wrong and we really have to do better.”
