‘I’m not sure I was sober for Liverpool debut but still feel hard done by Klopp’
Former Liverpool loanee Steven Caulker wasn’t certain if he was sober for his debut below Jurgen Klopp – who he feels handled him harshly.
Caulker, 32, was one of many first signings of the Klopp period in an eyebrow-raising transfer for the second half of the 2015/16 season. At the time he was scuffling with playing and alcohol addictions, demons which had adopted him all through his profession to that time.
The centre-back’s arrival at Anfield caught even him off guard as he’d been ingesting closely the night time earlier than, then got here straight into the Reds squad for his or her Premier League conflict with Arsenal 24 hours later.
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“Monday I signed, Tuesday I trained and then Wednesday was the game,” he recalled on the Under The Cosh podcast. “I used to be s***ing myself and thought, ‘I’m gonna begin right here’ as a result of they’d seven centre-halves out injured.
“And I used to be considering, ‘Oh my god, I’m going to begin. Am I even sober? How the f*** am I going to do that?’ I used to be panicking. That prepare journey up, I used to be panicking as a result of I hadn’t been taking good care of myself, I used to be a large number. I used to be frightened.”
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(Image: Liverpool FC by way of Getty Images)
After all that, Caulker did not begin, with Klopp taking part in Kolo Toure and Mamadou Sakho as an alternative. But with Arsenal successful 3-2 within the dying embers, he received the decision from Klopp, who defined he wasn’t approaching in defence however somewhat up entrance.
“I used to be like, ‘What’,” continued Caulker. “I didn’t get time to ask him and we ended up getting the equaliser and after the sport he simply came to visit high-fiving me [and saying] that, ‘They all assume you’re loopy till it really works’.”
Caulker would be used twice more as a makeshift striker substitute but only had one other appearance in his preferred position. He was set to start in an FA Cup replay against West Ham.
(Image: Getty Images)
But he defined how again spasms led him to inform Klopp he could not characteristic. “I was devastated, and from that moment on, he wrote me off,” Caulker claimed.
“I think he wrote me off as one of those guys who didn’t want to play or who was scared to play. It couldn’t have been further from the truth.
“That was it; my moment was gone. As soon as that went, and I felt it go because then he started putting me in the U23s to play every week, I was like, ‘Nah, that’s not on.’ You see it all the time; the manager just goes, ‘You’re not for me; out you go; get down with the kids.’”