Jurgen Klopp hailed the performance of Bobby Clark in Liverpool’s Europa League thrashing of Sparta Prague but revealed the youngster picked up an injury the club will monitor in the coming days.
After thrashing the Czech club 5-1 away from home in the first leg, Liverpool were relentless in the return fixture on Thursday night, going 4-0 up inside 15 minutes with Clark scoring his first senior goal for the side in that breathless start.
The Reds ran out 11-2 winners on aggregate to saunter into the last eight of the competition.
19-year-old midfielder Clark, the son of former Newcastle United midfielder Lee, was making his first European start of the club, rolling home his goal after his side were gifted the ball on the edge of the box.
His evening came to an end after 73 minutes when he was replaced by another youngster in Mateusz Musiałowski.
Speaking in his post-match press conference, Klopp said he had planned to bring Musiałowski on to replace Mohamed Salah, who started his first game for the club since January with a trip to Manchester United in the FA Cup looming large on Sunday.
Those plans changed however when the Reds boss noticed Clark was struggling, opting to replace him instead.
‘The plan was to take Mo off when we brought Mateusz on,’ Klopp explained.
‘But then Bobby sat in front of me and it was clear that we could not do that now and Bobby has to come off and Mo is still experienced enough that he recovered enough during the game.
‘I told him [Salah] not to defend anymore, I don’t think I’ve ever said that to a player before.’
‘For Bobby it is really nice to see them develop, it was a top performance. it was fantastic.
‘He is the only one we worry [about] a little bit. I hope it’s nothing.
‘He sat there and said he felt something so we had to take him off. Besides that, everyone else will be fine.’
Clark has featured in two of Liverpool’s last three Premier League matches, starting in the 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest before returning to the bench last weekend against Manchester City.
Liverpool remain without a number of players heading into that FA Cup clash with United with Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Ryan Gravenberch, Diogo Jota, Joel Matip and Thiago Alcantara all unavailable.
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