SAM ALLARDYCE has continued his goading of Jurgen Klopp by claiming the Liverpool manager has only himself to blame for the injury epidemic that threatens to derail the club's campaign.
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| Liverpool's injury crisis comes ahead of Premier League games with Arsenal and Manchester United |
Sunderland manager Allardyce said Klopp had misjudged the ferocity of the Premier League and that, coupled with his high-octane approach, was responsible for the crisis that sees the Anfield hierarchy discussing moves to bring a new defender in on loan.
Liverpool saw Philippe Coutinho and Dejan Lovren sustain hamstring injuries in the 1-0 Capital One Cup semi-final win over Stoke on Tuesday and now have 11 players out injured.
"That is him (Klopp) asking his players to play a high tempo pressing game from the top end," said Allardyce. "It's great that the players have been able to carry it out but I think it has kicked in now.
"I don't think Jurgen has realised just how ferocious our league is at this period of time and because he has asked for that extra high energy, that extra 10 yards, these lads are fatiguing now with so many games in such a short period of time and are picking up these muscle strains.
"They are highly trained athletes more than ever before, and they become more susceptible to injuries by the amount of work they do in a game now."
Allardyce added: "I still hark on about having a break at this time to lessen the workload on players.
"As a league and as a country we should look at helping the players along the way. Stoke played the same team for the fourth game in a row and the lads looked like they couldn't run."
The acerbic assessment comes after Allardyce dismissed Klopp as a "soft German" for complaining Jeremain Lens should have been sent-off for a tackle on Mamadou Sakho in Liverpool's 1-0 win at the Stadium of Light last week. Sakho missed the win at The Britannia and with Lovren and Martin Skrtel also now casualties, Klopp is targeting reinforcements.
Liverpool are keen on Schalke's Joel Matip who is out of contract in the summer and Klopp's relationship with Borussia Dortmund's Neven Subotic means he would be interested in him if his former club were willing to let him leave.
Youngster Tiago Ilori is heading back to Anfield with Aston Villa keen to cancel his loan spell with the 22-year-old having failed to make a single appearance. It is unlikely he would be considered ready to play. Allardyce's jibe in an interview on talkSPORT followed criticism from former Anfield manager Graeme Souness that Liverpool's training regime is responsible for the injury pile-up.
The irony is that Klopp, who yesterday completed the £5.1m signing of Marko Grujic who will return to Red Star Belgrade for the rest of the season, has yet to implement the double training sessions he favoured in Germany.
"We've had so many games recently that we've mainly been doing recovery sessions between games, so it's not as if the training has been really intensive," said midfielder Adam Lallana.
"You can't blame that. Sometimes you are just unlucky with injuries and we've had a lot of bad luck recently. I know from my time at Liverpool that we've got a world-class medical team here. We certainly can't point the finger at anyone."
Liverpool are recalling Sheyi Ojo from his loan spell at Wolves in an attempt to offset their injury crisis.
Meanwhile, Stoke striker Jon Walters has not given up hope of overturning their first leg deficit and reaching Wembley.
"We're going there full of hope," said Walters. "It's a one-off game and we've shown we can beat the big teams.
"The big bonus is that we weren't two or three down early in the first half with the chances they had."
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