Peterborough chairman Darragh MacAnthony has told Jurgen Klopp that he used Fabio Carvalho incorrectly in recent weeks.
The 20-year-old joined from Fulham earlier this summer and started last Saturday in Liverpool’s 3-3 draw with Brighton.
The decision to start with the Portugal Under-21 international raised some eyebrows and, although he showed glimpses of what he is capable of, he was replaced by Luis Diaz at half-time.
MacAnthony has questioned whether Klopp approached the game against the Seagulls with a touch of arrogance.
“The [Klopp] you need to get some of those players out of the line of fire,” MacAnthony said on The Hard Truth podcast (via talkSPORT).
“I’m watching Saturday and I’m a fan of Carvalho, he’s going to be a great player but you’re playing Brighton. They are not cups, they are a good team.
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“And you choose a front three of Carvalho, Roberto Firmino and Mohamed Salah. On the bench Diogo Jota, Luis Díaz, Darwin Núñez. £200m worth of strikers on the bench.
“Did you arrogantly think you were just going to go around Brighton? You didn’t need to do that with Carvalho, don’t kill the kid. Take your time. Diaz should have been in, or Nunez has to be in.”
Carvalho showed confidence during the first half against Roberto De Zerbi’s side and was one of the few Liverpool players to try and make things happen.
Although our performance in the first half was lackluster, Brighton deserve credit for their performance and it was worth the point they won.
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The Fulham Academy graduate scored his first goal for the club in a 9-0 thrashing last month before scoring an injury-time winner against Newcastle a few days later.
It’s clear the attacker has plenty of skill and, under the guidance of our German tactician, we can’t wait to see him develop alongside his former Craven Cottage team-mate Harvey Elliott.
We’d say Klopp has approached the situation of integrating Carvalho into the squad in the right way: he’s gained minutes in all of our Premier League games so far, but he’s yet to make his Champions League debut.
Our No. 28 may have struggled to make the impact he would have liked against the South Coast team recently, but that doesn’t mean it was the wrong decision to start him: He is young and will learn from games like that.
We have faith in Klopp that the boys will perform at their best again in the coming weeks and, following our win over Rangers on Tuesday, the focus now turns to Sunday’s big clash with Arsenal at the Emirates.
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