The absence of several players through injury has been a major factor in Liverpool’s stuttering start – they have now dropped nine points from their opening six Premier League games – and Klopp admitted it is likely to be an issue for a few more weeks. Midfielders Jordan Henderson, Thiago Alcantara and Naby Keita were among the seven players unavailable for the match, while new signing Arthur Melo was named among the substitutes but, according to Klopp, was not deemed fit to play. Kostas Tsimikas started at left-back ahead of Andrew Robertson, while Trent Alexander-Arnold came off after an hour to manage his minutes. “Trent plays all the time, Robbo (Robertson) plays all the time and from time to time, as we have at the moment, we have alternatives there, so we have to use them,” Klopp said. “That’s why we have to use them to bring fresh energy to the field, pretty much. It’s not about his performance, even when I know Trent can play better than today, sure, but it has nothing to do with that. “We have to go through this period as it is because, yes, players are coming back, but they have to reintegrate. We can’t just bring them back to play 90 minutes or whatever, that’s just not possible. “That’s why we have to see where we can make the changes and give a new dynamic to the game again.” Darwin Nunez came straight back into the Liverpool team on his return from a three-match ban but had a disappointing afternoon as he failed to convert any of the six chances that came his way. He was denied a superb save by Jordan Pickford, who pushed his shot onto the crossbar late in the first half – one of three times Liverpool hit the crossbar – but was also guilty of missing the target with two headers closely. range. “He had start-stop integration, that’s right,” Klopp said of the summer signing. “We play all the time, that means we can’t train all the time, he was sent off in one week when we had two or three regular sessions, the rest were individual when he needed to do a bit more… “I know he’s going to score in those moments in the future, that’s for sure… No, it’s not a concern or anything, it’s just the situation, everything is good for now in that perspective.” One concern Liverpool left Goodison Park was for Fabio Carvalho, who was replaced by Firmino at half-time after a dead leg. “It’s not bad, I think,” Klopp said. “It’s extremely painful, a dead leg in the muscle above the knee. He could not bend the knee because the muscle was swollen. “We’ll have to see how quickly it settles.”
