Jurgen Klopp has explained the reasoning behind sending Takumi Minamino on loan to Southampton for the rest of the Premier League season.
The Japanese international has only played one full game in the league this season where he produced a impressive display in the 7-0 rout of Crystal Palace, but since that game he has only played six minutes of league action much to the surprise of many fans.
Speaking ahead of this evening's clash with Brighton, Klopp acknowledged the lack of opportunities for the 26 year-old as the Official site reported:
“Takumi is an incredibly good player and we didn’t give him enough chances, that’s the truth. That’s for different reasons. Sometimes it was just the size; because of our problems in defence we were not tall enough and then Takumi on the pitch you think, ‘OK, how can we do that then?’
“Defending set-pieces is a very important part. It’s for the player not too interesting and for journalists probably not too interesting, but in some moments even these kind of things make the difference why one player is playing and the other not.”
As a manager when you decide to let a play leave on loan, it has to be a good fit for the player, and a club which you have a strong working relationship with.
Klopp said Southampton fits the bill on all fronts.
“Southampton came up and there were not a lot of clubs where I thought it really makes sense to let him go, but Southampton makes a lot of sense.
"He is there for 17 games now and in the situation Southampton is, if Takumi stays fit he has a good chance to play 17 games, which helps everybody.
“It helps Southampton and helps us, because the only thing Takumi was lacking was a couple of games in a row. And it was a difficult year.”
In a perfect world the 26 year-old would remain at the club and work his way into the manager’s plans, but Klopp says that this is just the start of his Liverpool journey.
“I would have loved to keep him, just to have the option and stuff like this, but in the end because Takumi is a long-term project and always was – we see really a lot of potential in Takumi – it makes absolute sense that he gets now the chance to play maybe 17 games, Premier League games, and then comes back in a completely different mindset, confidence level, all these kind of things.
Asked what he would like to see the utility player work on in his time at the South Coast club, the manager was pretty clear.
“He just has to enjoy football again there.
“He’s an outstanding professional, really a top talent, really, really good player, so it’s all good.
“But then we have a really good squad and we struggled a lot, but never in the offensive part, not really in the offensive part of the pitch.
"And my job is to make decisions based on what I imagine could be the outcome in the game. So, for example, the people fighting with him for the place were in really good shape; [Xherdan] Shaqiri when he came back showed up extremely, then with Divock [Origi] we all know what Divock did for us in the past.
“He doesn’t have to change anything, he doesn’t have to improve in anything. He just has to play football, to gain rhythm and confidence in that moment, and then he will be fine.”
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