Jurgen Klopp will have a 'problem' if Liverpool players do not respect EFL Cup

Klopp is confident that his players will take the competition seriously

Jürgen Klopp has warned his Liverpool squad that he will have a “problem” with any player that does not take the EFL Cup seriously.

Liverpool have high hopes of challenging for the Premier League title and the Champions League this season, having won all seven of their opening games at the start of the new campaign.

Their eighth outing sees Chelsea visit Merseyside on Wednesday night, with a place in the EFL Cup fourth round at stake. The two sides then meet in the league at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.

Klopp could be forgiven for prioritising his side’s league and European commitments and, with reserve goalkeeper Simon Mignolet confirmed to be starting on Wednesday, he is likely to give opportunities to several other fringe members of his squad.

Even so, the Liverpool manager stressed that he is not in the business of picking and choosing between potential trophies and demanded that his players show maximum respect to the English football’s second cup competition.

“It’s not about judging the silverware,” he said. “You cannot do it like that. What you have to be is always 100 per cent: concentration, focus, everything. Only be there. Don’t think where it leads to.

“If I see one player with the feeling: ‘Oh, it’s only the League Cup,’ then we [he and the player] could have a real problem. But there will be no player like this. I don’t think so, the players don’t think so.

Liverpool lost the 2016 EFL Cup final to City (Getty)

“It is a big football game at a sold out Anfield Road. We will be there, with all we have. That is all we are thinking about. If we get to the next round, we will be there with all that we have again. I know.”

For all the progress made since his appointment, Klopp is yet to add to Anfield’s trophy cabinet, having lost three finals during his time in charge.

The first was in this competition – Liverpool lost the 2016 final to Manchester City on penalties – and Klopp said the disappointment he felt at Wembley that day proves that it would be wrong to dismiss the EFL Cup.

“There are a lot of things when you come to a new country and you have no clue about it. One of the things I had was people judging cup competitions before I played them,” he said.

“My first cup game was Bournemouth. Everyone was telling me that I needed to play the kids or whatever. I thought: ‘I can play the kids but I can’t play all of them’. It was never like this. There are plenty of games, that is it.”

Klopp added: “We judge the situation, not the competition. We think: ‘How will the opponent line up?’ and stuff like this. There is always something that we have in our mind. It is never the competition.

“We never say: ‘Oh, it’s the League Cup’. The final is in March, it’s Wembley. When we were there the last time, we really wanted to win it. We were close but we didn’t. That’s how it is. We will try again.”