Jurgen Klopp has accepted the impact of Nabi Keita's early injury on Liverpool in a 2-2 draw with Brighton but insisted Alex Oxrad Chamberlain was not wrong.
Keita is expected to be "out for a while" after a hamstring injury early in Saturday's stalemate, where the Reds scored one point and were chased back two goals.
Chamberlain replaced the No. 8 19 minutes later and it was his brilliant arrow ball that gave Sadio Mane a 2-0 lead.
However, it soon became apparent that the Briton, along with Curtis Jones and Jordan Henderson, was at odds with the pace of a hungry, well-organised Brighton team in midfield.
Liverpool's 15th place was criticised after the draw, but Klopp stressed in a press conference before Atletico Madrid about the last game that it was "nothing to do with Oaks".
"We have our own tacit understanding, and if you look closely at us, you'll see a few of them," he explains.
"The right side works very well with Nabi, Trent and Mo. Lao Zhang appeared, and he obviously had completely different skills. ”
"It's completely different from Nabi and it's good, but it's different. By the way, he assisted the second goal!"
"It's not about him, it's about how you usually play and then you have to change them, all these things."
"It's not obvious against a lot of opponents, but it's true against Brighton. That's all we can say. ”
"[It] said a lot about Brighton, how they took advantage of our weaknesses in that game. But that's about it. ”
"Now we know [Keita] can't play, so we prepare in a different way, or two different ways, so we know exactly what everyone is doing."
Well, the advice is that Chamberlain becomes another Keita, but in midfield he clearly needs more improvement.
Of course, that could stem from his summer of preseason as a central striker throughout the preseason, before he played the 421 minutes of the game so far as a midfielder.
Klopp has placed a lot of emphasis on Liverpool's "triangle" this season, with the trio of Harvey Elliott, Mohammed Salah and Trent Alexander Arnold particularly well in the early stages.
Keita impressively filled the void for Elliott, but now the manager has been forced to change the status quo again, starting with a visit to Atletico Madrid – Thiago could be a candidate