Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp wants 20 of the club’s academy products in the first team.
Klopp took over at Anfield for Brendan Rodgers in October of 2015 and quickly made his mark, leading the Merseysiders to a berth in the Europa League final before falling to Sevilla.
The 49-year-old German has been known to hand young players an opportunity in his teams. And that reputation was confirmed last season as Liverpool dealt with a rash of midseason muscle injuries during which Klopp gave many first-timers and relative newcomers opportunities.
Speaking to the Liverpool Echo on Monday, the former Borussia Dortmund boss said he doesn’t expect to end the trend this season.
“Last season we had [Sheyi] Ojo, [Cameron] Brannagan, [Connor] Randall, [Brad] Smith, [Kevin] Stewart and [Pedro] Chirivella who played in real games for the first team,” Klopp told the newspaper.
“We’ve had Ben Woodburn, Ovie Ejaria and Trent [Alexander-Arnold] playing for us in the friendly games. Shamal George has been in a good way too.
“That’s eight or nine. What do we want? We want 20 of this quality. It’s a big number of players. We have to create better situations to make them better.”
Klopp praised the club’s academy for giving him so many options to choose from this season.
“The academy has done well to bring them to this level,” Klopp said. “I don’t know whether we could have done it better, but I know that they’ve done a good job.
“We have to keep working on the things we can make better but that doesn’t mean changing people.”
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