Jurgen Klopp has allayed Alexis Mac Allister’s injury fears after the Liverpool midfielder limped out of the friendly loss to Bayern Munich.
Mac Allister, a £35million summer signing from Brighton, took a heavy blow to his knee shortly before half-time of the 4-3 loss at the Singapore National Stadium on Wednesday.
He was treated on the field after the two teams had gone to their locker rooms, and he staggered off escorted by Liverpool backroom staff.
Klopp, on the other hand, has stated that the problem is not significant and that the Argentina World Cup champion was only changed as a precaution.
“It was knee on knee,” the Reds manager explained. “He could have continued. The first piece of information I got was that it was painful, therefore it was obvious that we would alter. There was no need to force him.
“When I chatted with him later, he stated everything was good. But we didn’t want to take any chances.
“It was just knee on knee.” A bruise. It was fine.”
Liverpool took an early lead thanks to goals from Cody Gakpo and Diogo Jota, but Bayern equalized before halftime thanks to goals from Serge Gnabry and Leroy Sane. Luis Diaz then put the Reds back in lead, only for Josip Stanisic to equalize before Frans Kratzig scored in injury time.
“I hate losing,” Klopp added. When it happens, I feel it, but it’s pre-season against a tough opponent.
“Today was particularly difficult. We played pretty well for the first 10 minutes or so, and then we were really in the game, with everything clicking.
“Was I surprised by the intensity?” No. It was quite obvious when you set up a contest between two very competitive teams and managers. It had to be stressful.
“The players must have looked at the clock and thought to themselves, ‘Oh, it’s only been 10 minutes, but it feels like an hour and 50 minutes.'”
“This is the last day of our second camp in a row.” The most essential piece of information is that no one was injured. Very cool.
“The physical aspect of the game today was a super important session for us.”
