Jurgen Klopp has admitted he decided against rotating his side further against Newcastle United when explaining his decision to make five changes to his Liverpool team from the one that beat Villarreal in midweek.
Joe Gomez, Joel Matip, James Milner, Naby Keita and Diogo Jota all came into the starting XI in place of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konate, Fabinho, Thiago Alcantara and Mohamed Salah as the German rotated his side with one eye on the Champions League semi-finals.
With the Reds still chasing an unprecedented quadruple, Klopp was always going to make changes against the Magpies. And with his squad depth stronger than it’s ever been at Anfield, the Liverpool manager revealed why he doesn’t actually find it that difficult picking his starting XI on a weekly basis.
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“It’s my job to make decisions. I don’t have to do a lot of other things,” he told reporters after the final whistle. “Kostas Tsimikas would have deserved to play as well and Robbo could have had a break as well.
“But when you take out one full-back and a centre-half, if you take out the other full-back and it’s three changes in the last line, what I think is, ‘No, don’t do that. Let’s do it like this’.
“The decision is not that difficult because the boys are all in a good shape. Divock Origi had stomach problems, like we had with Curtis and Kostas, so we had to make sure that wasn’t going around. So he was not involved.
"It’s hard in the moment for the players not to play, but with the quality the boys offer, for me it’s not that difficult.”
He continued: It’s cool, huh? That’s (Liverpool’s strength in depth) the only reason why we are where we are. That’s how it is. The boys buy completely into the situation.
“The boys who didn’t come on today, you should have seen their faces on the bench when we heard the final whistle. The group is exceptional, exceptionally talented and has really good character. That’s really helpful.”
