Boss confirms Reds will make changes for Hammers tie
Jürgen Klopp has confirmed he intends to make changes to his Liverpool side for Saturday’s FA Cup tie with West Ham United following their midweek exertions against Stoke City.
The Reds will utilise the depth of their squad for the visit of the Hammers after 120 minutes plus a penalty shootout in the midweek Capital One Cup success over Mark Hughes’ team.
Asked by reporters at Melwood whether he would field a ‘young team’ at Anfield, Klopp replied: “Yes, but it depends what is young in your opinion!
“It will be a different team, for sure, to the last game. We have no other chance. As I’ve said, [we ran] 156 kilometres [against Stoke]. We had a few players that ran 17 kilometres in this game, the highest speed ever and a few things like this. Nobody forced it before the game – ‘Please try to break all records!’
“It was the game; we wanted to go to the final and we had to fight for it. We did it and that’s great. We cannot say, ‘Come on, it’s West Ham, it’s the FA Cup, it’s the world championship or whatever. And then again against Leicester and again against the rest.’ It doesn’t work like this, so we have to make a few changes.
“We will make them but only because we want to win the game – that’s the only reason. When I think of the Exeter game at Anfield, it was great. It was a really great atmosphere, unbelievable, sold out, perfect.
“Hopefully we’ll be sold out again against West Ham and the boys who will start or come on will give everything because they will go to the next round. They really try to win each game. Maybe you cannot see it all the time, but inside they are always big fighters and that’s good. I love this attitude.
“Everybody knows about the situation of West Ham, they are a really good side, they play good football. They have a few players back, a few who are injured, maybe they will [also] make a few changes, I don’t know – we will see.
“When we played against them, we played badly at West Ham. They are in a good moment, they’ve had a few really good games in the last few weeks so we know what will be needed in a game like this, so that’s why we will change the team.”