Middlesbrough vs Liverpool: Jurgen Klopp explains why he dropped Loris Karius and start Simon Mignolet

The Liverpool manager chose not to 'push' his goalkeeper after his performances recently came under scrutiny

Karius will have to make do with a place on the bench (Sportimage)

Jurgen Klopp has explained that he dropped Loris Karius from Liverpool's starting line-up for Wednesday's trip to Middlesbrough as he does not want to "push him".

The 23-year-old goalkeeper lost his place to Simon Mignolet after making high-profile errors against Bournemouth and West Ham United in recent weeks.

Karius’ displays were criticised by Sky Sports pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher, with the former claiming that the Germany Under-21 international was simply "not good enough".

Having named Karius among the substitutes for the trip to the Riverside Stadium, Klopp said: “There was a lot of talk around this position in the last few weeks.

“There’s no reason for pushing Loris through this situation because he’s a much better goalkeeper than what he showed for example in the last game.

“There’s no reason to push, especially when you have a keeper like Simon who is training at a high level.”

Klopp was expected to retain Karius’ services having given a vociferous defence of his goalkeeper and questioned Neville’s criticism during a pre-match press conference on Monday.

“The pundits, former players most of them, forgot completely how it felt when they got criticised,” the Liverpool manager said.

“Especially the Neville brothers; the one who was the manager he obviously should know that too much criticism never helps.”

“But he is not interested in helping a Liverpool player, I can imagine, but that makes the things he says not make more sense.

“He showed he struggled with the job to judge players so why do we let him talk about players on television?”