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As Klopp himself pointed out weeks ago, the congested fixture list this season means that October feels like December and November feels like December and December is also still December. It’s been non-stop for the players since the season began. Though Klopp has made his opinions on this known, he has also been quick to salute his players’ resilience through it.
As they head into the international break, Klopp looked back on the run of games the team played since the October break. The Reds battled it out in seven different matches in both the Premier League and Europe, ending in a 1-1 draw at the Etihad against Manchester City.
They did it without losing any of their games and also without conceding in the Champions League. They sit at the top of their Champions League group with half of the games played and one point from the top of the league table. Most impressively, they did it with several key players missing at various points, including Virgil van Dijk, Fabinho, Alisson, Joel Matip and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
“Look, in the Premier League all opponents are tricky to play, unbelievable, so I don’t make really these kind of assumptions or think, ‘OK, we played them already and we played them already’,” Klopp told the official site.
“We have to play them again and wherever it is it will be difficult. It’s a tough period and for the boys it just goes on. They go now and play two, some of them three, games for their national teams and yeah, it’s a tough time.
“That’s why we have to make sure with the boys [that] we give them time, at least a few days when we can do it, to recover. Apart from that, the boys were ready to go again [against City] and I couldn’t be more happy about that.”
Trent Alexander-Arnold is the most recent victim of the heavy schedule, but on the bright side, he’ll get to skip the trio of games the England NT are playing this week.
Another three games finish off the month of November for the Reds when they players return, and then it’s onto December.