Angry Klopp speaks out on Nunez, Jota and Jones' fitness after Brentford win

angry klopp speaks out on nunez, jota and jones' fitness after brentford win

Diogo Jota was stretchered off in the first half of Liverpool’s win (Picture: Getty)

A prickly Jurgen Klopp said he had ‘mixed emotions’ after Curtis Jones, Diogo Jota and Darwin Nunez were all brought off with possible injuries in Liverpool’s 4-1 victory over Brentford.

Nunez beat Mark Flekken with an exquisite dinked finish to open the scoring in the 35th minute, but the Uruguay striker was replaced at the halfway stage by Cody Gakpo.

Alexis Mac Allister, Mohamed Salah and Gakpo increased Liverpool’s advantage to secure the visitors all three points, with Ivan Toney’s 75th-minute strike proving a rare highlight for Thomas Frank’s side.

The result saw Liverpool restore their five-point lead at the top of the Premier League table, but an ever-growing list of injury concerns took some of the gloss off the win for Klopp’s Reds.

First-choice goalkeeper Alisson was ruled out of the clash due to a hamstring problem and Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota were both forced off in the first half before Nunez picked up a niggle at the Gtech Community Stadium.

Jota’s suspected knee injury looked particularly worrying, with the Portugal attacker clearly in some discomfort as he was stretchered off the pitch and replaced by Ryan Gravenberch in the 34th minute.

In his post-match interview with TNT Sports, Klopp was unable to confirm whether any of Alisson, Jones, Jota or Nunez would be able to feature in the Carabao Cup final, with Liverpool competing in four separate competitions in their next five games.

angry klopp speaks out on nunez, jota and jones' fitness after brentford win

Liverpool midfielder Jones appears a doubt for the Carabao Cup final (Picture: Getty)

‘We don’t know what Alisson has but today there was – I didn’t see it back – a knock for Curtis. Whatever that means to his leg, we will see that. It was a challenge with Diogo as well,’ the Liverpool head coach said.

‘Darwin, we were not sure if he had something or not. He felt a little bit and after already having two players off and – you cannot really change anymore in the second half, or only one time – that’s why we decided at half-time to bring on Cody which was obviously a good idea as well.

‘We will see but it was never easy for us. It’s obviously not easy at the moment but for the moment it’s fine.

‘We have 57 points and then in three or four days time we play again.’

angry klopp speaks out on nunez, jota and jones' fitness after brentford win

Nunez broke the deadlock before being replaced at half-time (Picture: Getty)

Klopp was less than impressed with some of the tackles his players faced across the 90 minutes and felt Frank set his Brentford side up to ‘annoy’ their opponents.

‘The result and the performance, you have to get used to it. You can’t do anything in training which is close to what Brentford is really trying to do,’ the German added.

‘We had a week to prepare but in the end it is still extremely tricky to be really prepared. You have to feel in the game.

angry klopp speaks out on nunez, jota and jones' fitness after brentford win

Klopp’s men went five points clear at the top with the victory (Picture: Getty)

‘It’s mixed emotions obviously because we lost players which we don’t know how serious it is.

‘It doesn’t look great for either of them [Jones and Jota] but we cannot change that anymore. What the boys did after 15-20 minutes was absolutely exceptional.

‘It’s such a tricky place to play against a team that is set up to annoy you, set up to having set-pieces.

‘You look now at the stats. They had 18 fouls and we had four. This cannot be, it’s just not possible.’

angry klopp speaks out on nunez, jota and jones' fitness after brentford win

Jota went down after a challenge from Brentford midfielder Norgaard (Picture: Getty)

Later on, in his post-match press conference, Klopp confirmed that Jota’s knee problem was in all likelihood ‘the worst’ of the three injuries.

‘Curtis got a knock on the lower part of his shin, above the ankle. We will have to see what that means, what he felt, but he wasn’t 100 per cent sure,’ he explained.

‘If Curtis cannot play on that tells you it must be something because he would have played on at all costs.

‘Diogo looks probably the worst. I didn’t see it back but I heard that the pictures didn’t look great, so we will have to see there.

‘Darwin we took off because he said he feels “un poco”, really little, but it was obviously today enough to immediately push the brake and that’s what we did.

‘That’s not great. We can talk about that part of the game which is really not good but we cannot change that anymore.’

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