Jurgen Klopp praised Bobby Clark's performance in Liverpool’s Europa League victory over Sparta Prague but mentioned the young player sustained an injury that the club will keep an eye on in the next few days.
Following their 5-1 win over the Czech club in the first leg away from home, Liverpool were unstoppable in the return match on Thursday, quickly going 4-0 up within 15 minutes with Clark scoring his first senior goal for the team in that fast start.
The Reds won 11-2 on aggregate to comfortably advance to the quarter-finals of the competition.
19-year-old midfielder Clark, the son of former Newcastle United midfielder Lee, made his first European start for the club and slotted in his goal after his team was given the ball at the edge of the box.
His evening ended after 73 minutes when he was substituted for another young player, Mateusz Musiałowski.
Talking in his post-match press conference, Klopp mentioned that he had intended to bring Musiałowski on for Mohamed Salah, who played his first game for the club since January, with an important FA Cup match against Manchester United coming up on Sunday.
However, these plans changed when the Reds boss noticed that Clark was struggling, so he decided to substitute him instead.
‘The plan was to take Mo off when we brought Mateusz on,’ explained Klopp.
‘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 appeared in two of Liverpool’s last three Premier League matches, playing in the 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest before being on the bench last weekend against Manchester City.
Liverpool still have several players unavailable for the FA Cup clash with United, including Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Ryan Gravenberch, Diogo Jota, Joel Matip and Thiago Alcantara.
