Brendan Rodgers believes Liverpool’s demanding European schedule will give Manchester City an advantage when the teams meet in the Premier League at Anfield on Sunday.
Liverpool travelled to Istanbul for Thursday’s Europa League second leg tie against Besiktas without 10 first-team squad members including Jordan Henderson, who picked up a slight ankle knock at Southampton, and Philippe Coutinho. The influential Brazilian has been rested before the City game having made 19 consecutive starts since December.
Rodgers insists Liverpool’s itinerary left him no choice but to add Coutinho to an absentee list who include Steven Gerrard, Mamadou Sakho, Lucas Leiva and the suspended Lazar Markovic. The squad will travel back to Merseyside immediately after the Besiktas game, landing at 3am, have a recovery session late on Friday and one day’s training for the noon start against City – a 57-hour timeframe between landing and kick-off.
The Liverpool manager said: “That extra period of 48 hours that City have could be crucial, certainly physically, especially as we will have very little preparation time. It’ll just be about recovery. We can’t train on the pitch at Anfield, we can’t make it any worse than it is, so we’re having to train during the day. But that’s the way it’s been dealt and we’ll deal with it the best we can. The players have had lots of challenges to overcome this season and we are ready to keep performing and doing the best we can.”
Rodgers claimed “you don’t get help” in terms of television scheduling but insisted he would rather have the extra demands of the Europa League than be out of the competitionthough he admitted having to compromise his team selection against Slaven Bilic’s team to protect Liverpool’s push for a top four finish in the Premier League.
“You can’t go into this blind,” he said. “We take it seriously and want to get through but we also want to progress in the league. Like with Daniel Sturridge at the weekend, it is about managing him and his fitness. We get a lot of players and that’s why they were brought in.
“We are stretched at the moment. It’s not ideal. I’ve had to bring out young Coutinho. He hasn’t travelled. He’s an outstanding young player for us and he’s played a lot of game consecutively for us now. This was a game that I’d earmarked to give him some recovery knowing that he can stay at home, not travel and prepare and get ready for the weekend. Jordan has picked up a knock. It’s not ideal, especially with the early kick-off, but we know we’re at – we’re winning games and the confidence is high.”
