“It would have been perfect if we could have had more players on the team sheet.”
Jurgen Klopp was quick to praise the value of his squad when speaking after his side had secured the 2022 Carabao Cup with a penalty shootout victory over Chelsea.
“The whole journey was absolutely outstanding,” he added. “Without Takumi (Minamino) and Divock (Origi), the goals they scored in the competition, we would not be here.”
Klopp also namechecked several other players who were not able to be included in the 20-man match day squad at Wembley, and he probably didn’t have time to mention them all either.
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That’s because Liverpool used a remarkable 33 different players across their six League Cup fixtures this season, and a further five were included in match day squads without getting onto the pitch.
The unfortunate Thiago Alcantara, injured in the Wembley warm up and a regular key man for the Reds, was not one of them either.
Let’s pretend that Liverpool’s starting XI for one of their cup matches had been announced as the following: Alisson; Williams, Gomez, Konate, Tsimikas; Jones, Morton, Oxlade-Chamberlain; Minamino, Firmino, Jota.
You wouldn’t bat an eyelid, that seems perfectly reasonable.
Yet not one of those men started against Chelsea on Sunday, they’re merely the players with the most League Cup minutes this season who missed out.
And there has been a third XI which works in practical terms as a team too, containing Champions League winners James Milner and Divock Origi as well as highly rated youngsters like Harvey Elliott and Kaide Gordon.
It was obviously not Klopp’s intention when the competition began to use three players for each position for the purposes of creating an interesting piece of trivia.
But the fact he was able to speaks volumes for the strength of the squad at his disposal, particularly as the fixtures weren’t as easy as some top sides face in the domestic cups.
Five of the six games were against Premier League opposition, the other versus a Preston side who at the time of writing have lost the joint-sixth fewest matches in the Championship. The Reds’ FA Cup opponents to date have been far less intimidating.
The combination of injuries, suspension, Covid protocols and international duty took their toll over the course of the competition too.
Eighteen of the 33 players who made an appearance were absent for at least one of the fixtures for one of those reasons, making the squad management required to navigate the six games impressive too.
Particular credit and gratitude must go to Ibrahima Konate and Kostas Tsimikas, and not just when it comes to the League Cup.
After all, neither player started either leg of the semi-final against Arsenal nor the final last weekend (though Konate come off the bench in the last two matches).
These unsung heroes have provided the backbone to Jurgen Klopp’s team as the only two men who have been included in every single match day squad so far this season.
Both would undoubtedly like to have featured more than they have, with the centre-back and left-back having played 1,290 and 1,218 minutes respectively.
But there’s equally no shame in not having been able to permanently dislodge firmly established members of Klopp’s strongest starting XI.
History suggests they will do well to maintain their perfect attendance records until the end of the campaign.
Andy Robertson and Gini Wijnaldum fell one game short of the full set last term, nobody got within four the year before and other players were one shy in 2017/18 and 2018/19.
The options available to Klopp, as highlighted by the players used in the League Cup, also means that some very talented members of the squad will miss out on match days through no real fault of their own.
Konate and Tsimikas should be proud that Klopp sees them as indispensable members of his match day roster nonetheless, and there's plenty of other unsung Reds who contributed on the League Cup journey.
Liverpool are still fighting on all fronts this season, with one trophy already in the bag.
And the frightening display of squad depth shown during the Carabao Cup campaign is a signal they mean business all the way to May.
