Jurgen Klopp explains Mohamed Salah substitution in Liverpool’s defeat to Arsenal

Jurgen Klopp reveals he substituted Mohamed Salah in Liverpool’s 3-2 defeat to Arsenal because he needed a ‘very intense’ defensive display on his right side.

Arsenal news, exclusives and analysis

Liverpool went behind early on at the Emirates Stadium as Gabriel Martinelli put Arsenal ahead after 58 seconds.

Darwin Nunez scored Liverpool’s equaliser but Klopp’s men were trailing by half time following Bukayo Saka’s goal.

Roberto Firmino levelled the score once again but Arsenal were awarded a soft penalty which Saka converted to secure the win for Mikel Arteta’s side.

Salah, meanwhile, struggled to make an impact and was substituted in the 69th minute with the score at 2-2.

When asked why he brought Salah off, Klopp said after the game: ‘I thought we can… so we had to defend again on a high level and we tried to put Hendo on that side there. Mo did unbelievable, a lot, really big, big workload, he put in a real shift.

‘Sometimes it’s very intense and that’s why we thought we could do it with Hendo.

‘We wanted still to win, even when we took a striker off.’

Klopp also ruled Liverpool out of the title running as the result has left his side 14 points off top spot in the Premier League.

‘Yeah, not in the title race. Imagine if I would sit here and think we are nearly there, wait.

‘Look, we saw a lot of things. So we have problems in the moment but because the team in form, the leader of the table… even in a really bad situation for us with early changes of stuff, we caused them real problems, so that’s the truth as well.

‘Of course, in a situation like ours, we play Arsenal, now we play Rangers obviously and then we play Man City, is that the perfect opponent for finding confidence back? Probably not. But we will go out there and