has defended Diogo Jota after the forward was subbed off at half-time during Liverpool’s victory over Villarreal in the semi-final on Tuesday night.
After winning the first-leg 2-0 at Anfield last week, the Reds were stunned by the Yellow Submarine in Spain, with first-half goals from Boulaye Dia and Francis Coquelin levelling the tie on aggregate.
At the break, Klopp made a big change, subbing Jota off for Luis Diaz, and it had the desired effect with Diaz, Fabinho and scoring three goals in 12 minutes to send Liverpool into their 10th Champions League final.
January signing Diaz has been electric since he arrived at Anfield, and while Jota himself has had a great season, many believe the Colombian winger should now be starting ahead of the Portuguese star.
Klopp was keen to point out, though, that Jota did not get the hook because he was to blame for the first half performance, but simply because he wanted to ‘mix things up’ at half time.
‘He [Diaz] had a massive impact but what I don’t like about this is that the next story is around that Diogo Jota was our problem,’ Klopp said during his post-match press conference.
‘He was not at all our problem in the first half, not a little bit. We had 11 problems if you want in the first half and then we just had to mix it up and you can do that with explaining what I did obviously.
‘We needed fresh impulse, so it’s sad that he all of a sudden wasn’t involved in the game.
‘That was nothing to do with position, it must be a misunderstanding, it was for specific situations I wanted Mo [Salah] and Sadio high and wide but not in open play situations.’
The German manager went onto praise the mentality of his players, who could still win an unprecedented quadruple of trophies this season.
‘Even after working for so long together, it’s just because it means so much that’s how it is and all of a sudden, we were not ourselves but second half we were ourselves and that’s why we won the game.
‘Yes of course Luis what a goal, and a few more situations, I think. The first one which he kind of takes with a bicycle kick, if he takes that on the chest he can score there already, so yeah top performance.’
Liverpool will travel to Paris for the final at the end of May and they will face the winner of the other semi-final tie between Manchester City and Real Madrid.
The Citizens go into Wednesday night’s game at the Santiago Bernabeu with a 4-3 lead as they look to make back-to-back Champions League finals.
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