Neville cannot believe what Klopp did before Liverpool game, admits he got it wrong

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Gary Neville has admitted that he thought Jurgen Klopp leaving Mohamed Salah out of Liverpool’s visit to Newcastle United on Saturday was a mistake, but concedes that he was wrong to doubt the boss.

Liverpool temporarily moved top of the Premier League standings with a hard-fought 1-0 victory away to the Magpies.

Klopp is trying to mastermind an unprecedented quadruple at Anfield this season, having already delivered a Carabao Cup title, and with a Champions League semi-final against Villarreal on the horizon, along with an FA Cup final with Chelsea, squad rotation will be key.

The German manager left Salah out of his first XI against Newcastle and although Neville was skeptical at first, the Sky Sports pundit has admitted that the gamble certainly paid off for Klopp.

He said: “It’s the first time Jurgen Klopp’s left Mo Salah out in what feels like an absolute age, but he must have felt that was a game that he could leave him out in. Why he thought that, we don’t know. But when I saw that, I thought, ‘Right, what message does that send to the rest of the Liverpool players?’

“I just thought because he’s played Salah in every game, the game that he leaves Salah out in, I thought would be a risk because it tells the rest of the players something. I just thought there was a risk there when I saw the team news come through. I thought that’s a test for the other players because they know this guy is going to come straight back in against Villarreal..”

Backfire?

Thing is, it wasn’t really that big of a gamble by Klopp, so Neville should’ve never doubted the Liverpool manager.

Klopp has potentially the best group of attacking players in world football.

Even when you temporarily drop someone like Salah, arguably your best player, the front-three still consisted of Sadio Mane, Diogo Jota and Luis Diaz, a triumvirate good enough to test any defence.

Okay so Liverpool only wound up scoring the once on Saturday, but they could’ve scored a lot more and even Salah himself, when he got on, was guilty of missing a couple of good opportunities.