Jurgen Klopp defended his decision to omit Philippe Coutinho – despite suffering his biggest defeat as Liverpool boss.

Coutinho was left out of Liverpool’s squad to face City following the protracted saga of the forward’s ultimately failed bid to secure a move to Barcelona.

But Klopp stood by his decision not to involve Coutinho and admitted even the Brazil playmaker may not have been able to save the Reds from such a chastening defeat.

“I’m not sure it’s quite that easy, but if it is that easy – if we bring him in and then everything is great again – then that's cool,” said Klopp.

“With Phil, we didn’t always create more chances against City in the past. Yes, we scored more often in some games. But this was the decision we took [to leave him out].

Coutinho has returned to full training at Melwood, but was left out at City (
Image:
Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

“If people blame me for this, no problem, but it was a decision taken for the season. He came back after a long flight, after three weeks without playing.

“We have matches next Wednesday, next Saturday - we play, play, play, so we thought ‘Let’s give him three or four days’ proper training – and then he’s available for us’.”

Having made a central defender a priority in the transfer window, with Virgil Van Dijk his first-choice, Klopp’s failure to sign one could ultimately undermine Liverpool this season.

Klavan struggled against Aguero and co. (
Image:
2017 Getty Images)
A nightmare day for Herr Klopp (
Image:
REX/Shutterstock)

Dejan Lovren was left on the bench after playing twice for Serbia during the international break, leaving Joel Matip and Ragnar Klavan to be torn apart by City.

“We were never compact enough. To defend, we needed to be compact to cause them more problems. I was not happy with that.

“Can we play better? Yes, for sure. Things like this happen. It’s really bad, and we have to take the blame for everything that we saw.

“A couple of weeks ago [beating Arsenal 4-0] we got all the credit. This time we have to take the not-so-nice part, which is criticism. But we know about it.”

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