Jurgen Klopp hinted at an advanced role for fringe attacking star Xherdan Shaqiri in the German’s first-team plans for Liverpool in the aftermath of Sunday’s clash against Manchester United.
The Swiss international was handed a rare league outing as he was slotted into the midfield three for the Merseysiders’ high-billed Premier League fixture at home to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s table-toppers.
Shaqiri enjoyed a relatively fruitful game over the weekend and came close to registering an assist for Roberto Firmino, only for the latter to fire his effort over David de Gea’s goal.
During his post-match press conference, Klopp heaped praise for Shaqiri’s showing and admitted that the former Bayern Munich man could have stayed on the pitch for a bit longer, however, concerns over his fitness forced Klopp’s hand in withdrawing him off the Anfield turf with 14 minutes still left to play for.
“Shaq is in a really good shape. Maybe he could have played a little bit longer [v. Utd] but I was not sure.”
“It had been a long time without playing [from the start] but he was really good, especially in the first half hour. Shaq was really there and helped massively.
“There were a lot of really good individual performances. If you think of the last two games, this was a massive improvement and that’s important. It was much more us if not completely us.”
