Jurgen Klopp’s ongoing complaints about Liverpool’s fixture schedule has drawn criticism from former Premier League players Robbie Savage and Chris Sutton.
The pair, who are both known as outspoken pundits, respectively branded the Reds boss as “pathetic” and “badly wrong” over his latest complaints.
Following Liverpool’s return from the latest international break and their 3-0 home win over Leicester City, Klopp – in an interview not shown on UK networks – told Sky Sports "we are all done" unless they start talk to rival station BT Sport to negotiate to avoid scenarios such as the following weekend’s game in which the Reds followed up a Wednesday night Champions League game with a 12:30pm Saturday kick-off at Brighton & Hove Albion.
After the 1-1 draw in that fixture, Klopp, who believes that the current season is a special case because of the repercussions of the global coronavirus pandemic, was then embroiled in a passionate exchange with BT Sport’s Des Kelly over what he called a “dangerous” time given the shorter test period between matches.
However, he failed to gain much sympathy from either Savage or Sutton.
HITC quote Savage as declaring on BBC Radio 5 Live: “Footballers, we are very fortunate, aren’t we?
“Yes, it’s two games or three games a week.
“When players get a muscle injury, I think we are very privileged to do the job we love. We get paid handsomely.
“If we were injured, we could sit at home and still get paid because we are under contract.
“So, I am not having Premier League managers moaning about muscle injures when you have got heroes all over the country, the NHS, doing what they are doing and then we have managers moaning about two games a week.
“I think it was pathetic from Klopp.”
Meanwhile, Sutton responded: “I agree with you. What I don’t get is all the clubs signed up for it.
“So, why is Jurgen Klopp moaning? When you are a big club, you want to play at the highest level.
“The big clubs are playing in the Champions League. This has happened for years.
“Sir Alex Ferguson used to moan about this fixture schedule.
“Ask the likes of Burnley whether they would like to have the big money to lavish out on transfer fees and player wages, of course, they would.
“I think Klopp has got this badly wrong.”
