Ron Walker
Digital Football Journalist
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Liverpool due to play at Club World Cup in week of Carabao Cup quarter-finals
Last Updated: 30 / 10 / 19 11: (PM)
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Curtis Jones was the hero for Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool side at Anfield on Wednesday night
Jurgen Klopp has expressed his concerns over Liverpool’s fixture pile-up, after his side beat Arsenal to progress to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals.
Liverpool are due to face one of the other qualified teams in the last eight on December 17 or 18, but are already set to play their first game in the Club World Cup, as last season’s Champions League winners, on December 18 in Qatar.
They also have a Premier League game with West Ham awaiting r escheduling due to their visit to Asia, and have six midweek fixtures in a row pencilled in between November 27 and January 2. *************
Gabriel Martinelli had put Arsenal 3-1 ahead in the first half
Following their penalty shoot-out win over Arsenal in round four, Klopp toldSky Sports: “It shows the problem we have in the Premier League that no one cares about things like this, so that’s how it is.
“The competition is there, we play the game, if we have no time for the next round we cannot change it.
Highlights of the Carabao Cup last – 16 match between Liverpool and Arsenal
“Fifa tells us we have to go to the Club World Cup, the Premier League tell us we have to play in the Carabao Cup so we try to play it, but if we don’t find time it will not happen in our winter break or whatever they give us, because we need that.
“So, I don’t care to be honest. It just shows what the problem is. Everybody wants us to play constantly, we’ve just thought about tonight – we’re not thinking about the next round. “
Liverpool’s manic month
Date | Opponent |
---|---|
Nov ember 23 | Crystal Palace (A) |
Napoli (H) | |
Brighton (H) | |
Everton (H) | |
Bournemouth (A) | |
RB Salzburg (A) | |
Watford (H) | |
Wolves (H) | |
Sheffield United (H) | |
January 3 -6 |
In his post-match press conference, he added: “If they don’t find a place for us, an appropriate place, not 3pm on Christmas Day or something, then we don’t play. They have to make it. You have to think about these things – if you have a fixture list, where one team cannot be part of all the games, then you have to think about it.
“Hopefully it starts now. I think it’s fair that this problem is obvious now. We will not be the victim of this problem. We played tonight, we want to win it, if they don’t find a proper date for us, we cannot play the next round and whoever our opponent is will go through, or Arsenal. “
Klopp: We take Carabao Cup seriously
(Liverpool progressed to the quarter-finals on penalties
) When Liverpool’s line-up to face Arsenal was announced ahead of kick-off, Klopp was fully anticipat ing accusations that he wasn’t taking the competition seriously after making 11 changes from their weekend win over Tottenham.
But he toldSky Sports: “It’s not true. We cannot do it differently, we had to make a lot of changes, but we made them because we trust the boys. How they played tonight, I loved it, really.
“In the end, it was about encouragement to get them to keep going. That was the job to do and they did, with the team they had tonight having 60, 65 per cent possession is crazy.
“The mistakes we made was because we were too open, but that’s how it is. We want to be fluent, we are not used to playing with each other and that can happen.
“What I wished for the boys that they can have a game to remember, and that’s what happened. “
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