Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp believes the recently crowned champions of England Manchester City would not have clinched the much-coveted crown should they have succumbed to an injury crisis similar to what has been endured by Klopp’s side this season.
The Reds have been without their three senior names in the centre-back role in Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip with the trio being sidelined for the remainder of the 2020-21 campaign with long-term injury layoffs and expected only to return in time for the new season.
In the following chain of events, Klopp had been forced to draft his midfielders Fabinho and Jordan Henderson as makeshift options at centre-back besides bringing in the relatively inexperienced likes of Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams to make their debuts after which he finally gave in to the pressure on deadline-day to acquire Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak.
Reports from Goal claim Klopp saying that even Manchester City who have enjoyed a brilliant title-winning campaign this time around would have struggled to be crowned the top-flight champions should they have had their three central defenders out for the season due to injury.
“As good as they are, if City have their three centre-halves out, no [they don’t win the league],” Klopp told his pre-match press conference ahead of a final-day encounter with Crystal Palace.
“Three centre-halves of United, no. For the whole season pretty much too, that is how it is. [But] the thing about a season is you cannot cut off the negative parts from the positive parts and say that we are nearly there.”
“It was not always in the most convincing fashion but we were still winning games, scoring.
“Then we had to – and we had to at that time – make midfielders into centre-halves and it broke our spine. Then the whole setup was gone. The young boys were not ready to play at centre-half, the midfielders had to at times [play] at centre-half.
“We lost some rhythm all of a sudden but not all the time. AÂ football team is like an orchestra where plenty of people work together and if you lose one piece, you might be able to still do it, but if you lose two then it becomes difficult.
“It is how I said before, this year, with the amount of injuries we have had, it was not the year to become champions. No chance. For nobody.
