TERRACE TALK: Liverpool - Now we know why Klopp doesn’t like to rotate

Is this where we begin to stutter? Are those new year swearing resolutions broken already?

Most of us expected a dip in form after City. Some tried to praise Guardiola for the change in that game but Liverpool simply ran out of gas.

To believe they’d have a full tank two days later was folly. Not ours (for a change) but the league’s.

I’m not sure what Klopp’s problem is with rotation but he’ll have to learn it some time. Looking at what lies directly beneath the best 10 players during the Plymouth match, you can hardly blame him.

How do you fix it? Pay through the nose so that good players will tolerate sitting on the bench most weeks.

Then reach the highest levels of the game so you dangle the carrot of tenuous association with league and European glory — neither of which Liverpool are capable of doing at present.

One day’s rest, though. Apparently it will be even more chaotic next December. Klopp’s chagrin will simply be filed away alongside all other foreign whining.

We’re British, damn it. We’ll have none of these lectures from Germans about how to be efficient about football. What have you ever done? 1966, by Gad! Etc… Moyes even tapped into some absurd belief he’d be thought better of if he were German. Yes, your spawny two-pen home point against a knackered Liverpool will soon have the big guns knocking down your door again. After all, it went sooooo well last time…

We’d have to shoot ourselves in both feet then hack our legs off not to qualify for Europe next season so this rest period dilemma does need resolving at some point.

The draw with Sunderland actually pegged Chelsea back a bit after their run came to its inevitable albeit delayed conclusion.

Social media batted it back and forth; glass half full, glass half empty etc. Those of us chuffed/chilled enough and just happy to be involved paid no heed.

There was more fun to be had listening to Evertonians about their new ground and the secret billions they’re about to get.

Their cup exit was about the most predictable result of all after a week where they’d insisted Red bile and jealousy was about to consume us whole.

It was like flies learning to talk. “This is annoying you, right? Open as many windows as you like pal, I’m not going out. Ah, picked up a newspaper now have we? I really get to you don’t I?” SPLAT! And that’s the end of that.

Of course there’s one golden rule in cup week and that’s to save all the gloating until you’ve vaulted your own hurdle.

Klopp’s idea of rotation is dropping everyone for cup games, so you knew what to expect. He’d done it for Tottenham, why not Plymouth?

It helps if you impress upon players selected that a replay is the very last thing you want. He probably thought the attitude of his senior players would do that for him.

How naive.

You see this sometimes, almost an exaggerated sense of grievance that you’ve been chosen to play in such games, like for the last lifeboat of a sinking ship.

Women and children first. Able-bodied men second. Riff raff last. Not rested = not one of the manager’s blue-eyed sons. So just go out and sulk then eh? That’ll work.

You need fierce competition for places so a player’s bound to try and do his best to become one of your faves.

Emre Can and Divock Origi let Klopp know what they thought of that.

If either are seen anywhere near Old Trafford next Sunday, the manager’s got some explaining to do.

Still in the cup of course, so carry on gloating for a while. Such days only get their justification or condemnation from future results. It’s almost impossible to judge right now.

Meet here next week, then. Same time, same place?