Jürgen Klopp admits Liverpool face a challenge to keep Christian Benteke quiet on Saturday when his side come up against the man deemed surplus to requirements at Anfield.
Liverpool, then managed by Brendan Rodgers, paid £32.5m to sign the striker from Aston Villa in the summer of 2015 but then sold him a year later to Crystal Palace after Klopp decided the forward did not fit into his plans.
Now Benteke, who has scored three goals in seven Premier League games, faces Liverpool for the first time since leaving Anfield and Klopp believes his side will face a testing time at Selhurst Park. “When you have a player like Christian in your squad, of course we knew about his quality,” said Klopp.
“But every player needs the space to perform, to develop and to show things. For different reasons we couldn’t give him all the time [he needed], you lose a little bit of confidence, you feel pressure.
“We couldn’t change it and I thought, and I’m pretty sure Christian thinks the same, it made sense. He made the transfer so, for Crystal Palace, what a player. We know it best because we had him all the time in training and in all moments he showed always his quality.
“It’s never really nice because there’s a lot of expectation from both sides when you make a transfer like this. But in my job I can’t always be nice. I have to make a decision for the club and for the team.”
“Christian is a great player and a wonderful person,” Klopp added. “I have nothing bad to say about him. Unfortunately now he plays for Crystal Palace and now we have to face them. It will be really difficult.
“He has given them a real boost of quality. Will he feel like he has a point to prove? I have no idea. You would have to ask him. It’s not the first time in my life that I’ve played against a player who was in my team the previous season.”
Keeping a large squad full of international players happy is a perennial issue for Premier League managers.
This week Simon Mignolet said he would never be satisfied as a No2 after Klopp announced Loris Karius was his first-choice keeper. But the German insisted his is a happy camp, saying: “I’m always honest and I say my door and the door in the team is always open but it’s about performing. We have always this agreement: work hard, don’t talk too much, win games. If a player doesn’t want to be happy, I can’t keep him happy but, if he wants to be happy, it’s quite easy for me to keep him happy.
“Being happy only when you make 48 games, it’s difficult for each player. To feel you are important for the team, that’s 100 per cent true for each player in the squad. I think it’s not too difficult to be happy in our team.”
Liverpool head to London looking to make it six wins from seven Premier League games, a run that has put them level on points with Manchester City and Arsenal at the top of the table. James Milner is a doubt after missing Tuesday’s 2-1 EFL Cup win over Tottenham through illness while the captain, Jordan Henderson, is back in the squad after suspension. Klopp, meanwhile, insisted no decision has yet been made about the future of Melwood.
It has been reported that the Reds are ready to sell their long-term training base in order to bring all age groups under one roof. Currently the academy and youth teams train at Kirkby and there is no room to expand Melwood.
Klopp added: “It makes sense to improve the circumstances. We didn’t finally decide about it because it’s not all in our hands but of course we have to think about developing things, to make it more likely to get the best out of our talents, to have the best circumstances for the first team, the under-23s, all the youth teams, and space is an important thing to think about.”
