Liverpool duo Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain not fighting for same midfield spot, insists Jurgen Klopp

David Lynch28 February 2020

Jurgen Klopp has insisted that Liverpool midfielder Naby Keita can do better than his hotly-debated performance against West Ham United.

But the German boss insists his no8 is not in direct competition with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for a place in the starting XI, despite the latter putting on an outstanding showing from the bench.

With the Reds trailing 2-1 in the 57th minute of Monday’s game, Klopp elected to bring an end to a somewhat mixed personal performance from Keita.

His replacement, Oxlade-Chamberlain, subsequently injected some much-needed drive from midfield, helping the hosts turn the game on its head as they ran out 3-2 winners.

The merits of each player’s performances have been endlessly pored over in the days since, with much of the discussion centring on who should get the nod to face Watford this weekend.

In Pictures | Liverpool vs West Ham | 24/02/2020

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However, Klopp is adamant that both men are capable of offering plenty to the team, and claimed that the issues he saw against West Ham were collective, rather than individual.

The German said: “They don’t compete against each other, hopefully they don’t see it like this, it’s not like this. They offer naturally different things.

“Naby can play better than he played, obviously, but that is not the reason the game was like it was.

“Oxlade came on completely fresh and with his natural skills - having direction, speed - it’s a different player. But that doesn’t say anything about it. Different situations, we need different players, and they are all exceptional.

“That’s all fine but until the change we were more fixed in positions, it was not flexible enough, it was not unpredictable enough, we were too easy to defend.

“In other situations we were too high on the wings, we crossed the ball, [gave away] counter-attacks, stuff like that.

“But the main problem of the game was second balls and set-pieces because, without these problems, West Ham wouldn’t have had a lot of the game, they couldn’t gain confidence.

“But with these situations they were constantly in the game and that was our main problem, that’s what we have to solve.

“It will be similar [at Watford with] Foster to Deeney, a frequently used option for Watford, and we have to be there for these situations and make sure that we win much more second balls and can use these balls.

“In this game, we were second best in the second-ball game.”

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