Klopp wants his fringe players to step up their game

Jurgen Klopp is hoping that squad members on the periphery of Liverpool’s starting line-up can push his team to glory this season.

The German had to rotate his squad a lot last campaign due to extra fixtures in their Europa League and League Cup runs – meaning most of the squad managed to contribute.

However, Klopp’s men failed to qualify for the Europa League or Champions League for this season, so back-up players will have to be more patient in their search for first-team football.

Klopp wants the Reds squad to unite as a “team” and is encouraging the players outside of the line-up to push the 11 starters as hard as they can.

“When we lost the Europa League final, there was absolutely nothing worthwhile about it, just a load of disappointment,” he told the club’s official website.

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“In the end the only positive thing about not playing European football this year is that we have more time to train and that is what we have to use, 100 per cent.

“That’s why we need to create a very strong team in the best understanding of the word ‘team’. We need to have competition.

“We need a situation where the players push themselves and each one pushes the other for each position and wants to be in the team because you have time to recover.

“So it’s not that you have to change the team a lot between two Saturday games or two Sunday games – it’s nothing about rotation. It’s about: ‘OK, who is ready now? Who is ready to perform how we need in each specific game?'”