Among all the more or less unexpected team selection choices Klopp made for the clash against Genk on Wednesday James Milner starting as a right-back was probably the most surprising one.
Joe Gomez seemed to be the most obvious candidate to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold who was ruled out due to a virus. However, Klopp apparently didn't even consider this pick as a two-choice option.
"[Milner was] picked over Joe [Gomez]? I didn’t see it like that, to be honest, I only picked Millie," he told after the game as quoted by Liverpoolfc.com. "We got the message on Tuesday morning that Trent was ill overnight so we wanted to change as little as possible.
"Millie then, in the way we wanted to play, was the clear number one solution for that moment. But after 15 minutes already it was clear that we would try to change again [by] bringing Joe on.
"Joe did really well. He looked confident, looked clear, it was good. That was the only reason, nothing against Joe."
As much as the Reds fans might have wanted to see Joe - who's still struggling to seize any consistent playing time - starting against Genk, one can not deny that Klopp's choice turned out to be brilliant. Milner had a wonderful match, industrious and reliable as ever, significantly contributing to the Reds' domination throughout the most part of the game.
