Jurgen Klopp has admitted he had to defy Liverpool’s medical staff to bring Diogo Jota back into his squad for Tuesday’s 2-0 win over Burnley.
Jota had missed over a month with a muscle injury and had trained just twice before being named on the Liverpool bench at Turf Moor. He made the most of his return by coming on late and scoring just minutes later to ease the pressure on his side and secure all three points.
After the game, Klopp confessed he took a risk with Jota’s fitness after Liverpool‘s medical department insisted the forward was not ready to return yet.
“We sneaked him in somehow on the squad list because he trained only twice and the medical department wanted to give him extra training and I said he can have that in Burnley,” Klopp revealed after the game.
“He had that tonight and now he can train tomorrow properly and then he will be ready for Newcastle [on Monday], which is really helpful. 2-0, no injuries, all good.”
Darwin Nunez struck early in the game to put Liverpool ahead before both Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott saw goals controversially ruled out for a foul and offside respectively, and Burnley were growing into the game by the time Jota popped up to save the day.
“I love Diogo Jota but he missed chances in the past as well,” Klopp said. “He had some fortune like that. It’s the nature of the thing that we always ask for, always the players who are not involved and then all of a sudden they think they can change the world.
“Diogo is an incredibly important player for us. Having him changed the whole dynamic, that’s true, but before in his life he missed some chances.
“The goal he scored today is the goal of a boy full of conviction. Good technique, obviously, but full of conviction because he had no chance to create any kind of doubt in the last few weeks because he was in rehab. That’s why the goal for Darwin was as important. Cody scored again, Harvey scored an incredible goal, they just took them away and it’s really, really tough, but how I said, we won the game and it’s all fine.”
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