Jurgen Klopp has welcomed Joel Matip back from injury but doesn’t want to put extra burden on the defender.
Matip missed the last game against Bournemouth where the Reds wasted a two-goal lead to lose the match 4-3. Matip’s presence will be a huge boost for Liverpool who will be facing relegation-threatened West Ham United today. Matip has been a key part of Klopp’s plans since arriving from Schalke on a free transfer. His absences are proving to be costly affairs as their only two defeats in the Premier League against Bournemouth and Burnley have come with the player missing in action.
Klopp said,
“Obviously he has had a good influence. He is a good player and adapted soon to what we need but it is not fair (to place the burden on Matip).
“The centre-halves (at Bournemouth) were not perfect around the goals. That is pretty likely most of the time when you concede goals, the centre-halves are around and could have done better.
“At Burnley, the other game we lost, we should have defended the goals much earlier than in the centre-half region.
“We made similar mistakes again, and again a team used it.
We had a few similar problems in other matches which the opponent did use and so we were aware of it but this (Bournemouth) match helped us a lot to understand really what the problem is with our protection sometimes.“Joel is a wonderful player but Lucas and Dejan (Lovren) and Ragnar (Klavan) and Joe Gomez in the future – they are really good football players and will do a wonderful job for Liverpool.”
