Jurgen Klopp has been labelled a ‘disgrace’ over his comments about Liverpool’s FA Cup 4th round replay against Shrewsbury.
The Liverpool boss said that they will face the League One side with a youth team, managed by their Under 23 coach.
You might not know about it, or how it works, but the FA and the Premier League have introduced a midseason break for this season. They have done this by scheduling a split round of Premier League fixtures over two weekends in February. However, should a team be playing an FA Cup replay, like Liverpool, they will have less time off. This is what Jurgen Klopp appears to be irate about.
“The Premier League asked us to respect the winter break. That’s what we do,” said Jurgen Klopp.
”If the FA doesn’t respect that, then we cannot change it. We will not be there.”
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Accrington Stanley owner Andy Holt is the man who called Klopp a disgrace. He also said that “this is pure selfishness of the highest degree”. The noise coming from the rest of the football commentariat is along similar lines.
Klopp has two things working against him here. One, he is foreign. Two, he manages the nations best team at the moment. People want him to fail and will not give him excuses.
What the British punditocracy might not want to admit is that Klopp has a point. The English football calendar is frankly ridiculous. The fact that the Premier League is only just implementing a winter break, which is commonplace in all other European leagues, is damning enough.
Burnout and injury as a result of the demands placed on footballers has become detrimental to the game as a whole. Think of a player like Alexis Sanchez. Sanchez’s star burned brightly, but not for very long. Relentless Premier League football combined with an international tournament every summer have turned him into a shadow of the player he once was.
In England, there are fears that Harry Kane, who is injured every year, will decline soon for the same reason.
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As well as that, Liverpool are far from the only team to ‘disrespect’ the FA Cup like this. Recent years have seen more lower league teams play second string sides in the FA Cup, because they need their resources for the league season. Not to mention that those smaller teams would prefer to play a big Premier League side away, because they get 45% of the gate money. If they get put on television, then they make more money. This is the stark reality of modern English football. Jurgen Klopp is not responsible for diminishing the magic of the cup.
He’s not going about it in a way that will make anybody happy, but Klopp is making a stand that needs to be made. Yes, a big team like Liverpool are more than capable of dealing with fixture pileup. But a figure from a smaller team would not be able to instigate this necessary conversation.
Premier League footballers compete in the league, the FA cup, in Europe and in the League Cup. As well as that, they now have the Nations League throughout the season too, and an international tournament every summer. Sooner or later, something has to give.
