Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has slammed those criticising his team’s age despite their impressive 9-0 win over Bournemouth.
The Reds have come under some criticism for their lack of investment in the transfer market this summer.
Some fans and pundits believe that the core of Klopp’s squad, especially in midfield, is too old.
Klopp told the club website about the concerns: “But that will change naturally, that will change naturally. What is that? In the moment when we consider 30-year-old, 29, 30-year-old people as old then something is really a problem – for all in the room pretty much, by the way, a massive problem!
“But I understand it 100 per cent. That will change naturally. We have the young boys. We could line up a really young midfield, a really young midfield, and that could work
.
“They are already here. Let me say we start Stefan on six – believe it or not, he could play that now – and Harvey and Fabio turns 20 today. The average would be 18 I think, or 18-and-a-half, of these three players. I would do that, no problem at all. So it makes now immediate sense? I’m not sure but we could do it. And now in a year, great.
“So we have three very young midfielders and then we have in the best football age – 25, 26 – and then we have players around 30; they bring in experience, they have the determination, they are the characters in this team, all these kind of things, very important – you cannot buy this. They developed it over years and now in the moment in their prime we say, ‘Now you’re getting too old. You are not too old but you’re getting too old’? Yes, we will have an eye on that, definitely, no worries about that. But I understand all these kind of things.
“You expect or you know that injuries will happen but that they came all together in this moment – because we always had injuries, it’s normal, all football teams have that – but this came together. Again, we had this kind of a little bit.
“We had, two years ago, the centre-half disease and then all of a sudden the strikers were struggling there a little bit and then a midfielder… It’s not like one striker, one midfielder and one defender or whatever. It’s then always a bit the other way around. That’s all.”
