Jurgen Klopp says he has ‘no idea’ what to expect from Tottenham this weekend and admits he does not see the ‘benefit’ of a Premier League break.
Liverpool travel to face Spurs this weekend, with the north London side having not played for two weeks following a large outbreak of positive Covid-19 cases amongst Antonio Conte’s squad.
Klopp admits the situation means he is unsure of what to expect from a Tottenham side that hasn’t played since December 5th, with the German possessing little knowledge on the condition of the Spurs squad as he prepares his side for the trip to the capital.
“I have no idea what to expect from them,” he told the media. “After this news conference we will have an analyst meeting with old footage. We have no information. For them it is difficult as well. Who does not want to play for two weeks and then have to play again.
“More transparency would be really helpful. We know that three players are probably not going to be available.
“I heard Manchester United had a number of cases but I don’t know how many. I had no information on who had the virus at Tottenham.”
Klopp provided an update on his squad ahead of the clash, with Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho and Curtis Jones having missed Thursday’s 3-1 win over Newcastle after contracting Covid-19.
The trio are currently isolating and will undergo further tests, which if positive could see them miss clashes with Tottenham, Leicester and Leeds with a 10-day period of quarantine required.
“We don’t have anything to hide,” Klopp said on his side’s situation.
“Our first and most important concern is that the boys are healthy. If someone has the flu and you ask me, I say he has flu. If someone has a broken toe and I know I will say he has a broken toe.
We have to find a way to get through all this and I think an exchange of information is pretty helpful. I just say it how it is.
“I know all the anti-vaxxers will say Jurgen Klopp said they had the vaccine but now they have the virus. Yes and that’s what I said before it makes it more unlikely to get it. Unfortunately, they had the booster too late for the infection, if they are infected.”
🗣 "I know all the anti-vaxxers out there will say Klopp said they were vaccinated and got the virus, you can get it but you get through it in the right way."
Jurgen Klopp says he has nothing to hide regarding his players and defends his comments about the vaccine pic.twitter.com/xOOaTtKOkT
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) December 17, 2021
Klopp also discussed suggestions that the Premier League should take a break in a bid to combat rising cases, with Brentford’s Thomas Frank having called for all of this weekend’s fixtures to be cancelled.
The German questioned the benefit of a break and believes it would be difficult to reschedule games into a congested season, but says depleted Premier League squads will struggle to play every three days if cases continue to soar.
“I’m not against stopping the league, I just don’t see the 100% benefit of it,” he said.
“Stopping it means stopping now for one or two weeks, so five or six games. When do you want to play them?
“Or we just play on. It is really difficult because step by step players will get infected.
“We have games on Sunday and Wednesday, the FA Cup where if I am right or wrong the opponent does not really have a testing regime or the vaccination rate is low, but we don’t get any information because it is just football.
“Can you play on? Yes. Can you use youth player and academy players? Yes. Can you play every three days? No. That’s the thing with reduced squads we cannot play on, we cannot play every three days. There are obviously some things we have to talk about.”
