Jurgen Klopp has had his say on the new Premier League rules which will see officials come down harder on teams attempting to run down the clock.
As we saw at the winter World Cup in Qatar, top-flight matches are now expected to feature longer periods of stoppage time to account for any gamesmanship deemed to be deliberate acts of time-wasting.
Man United defender Raphael Varane recently spoke out about the proposed changes, insisting that elongated matches are “dangerous” for player welfare.
Klopp has previously been vocal in his opinions about football schedules being too packed and arguing that player interests are not being taken into account.
Speaking ahead of his side’s trip to Chelsea, the Liverpool boss suggested that a “good solution” must be found to combat time-wasting while keeping player wellbeing at the forefront of the conversation.
“It’s difficult to answer,” the boss conceded when asked whether the new rules could harm players.
“I know where you’re coming from, we have a 90-minute game and in the end we have net game time, ball in play between 50 and 55 minutes and everybody could ask ‘well where is the ball all the other time?’
“If we can get to 55 to 60 minutes ball in play, yeah, we will see. It doesn’t sound too difficult I have to say.
“When I speak about player welfare I speak about in general we have too many competitions, we have too many games in general now but having three or four minutes a game more ball in play I can see it now it will make a massive difference.
“I understand where [the players] are coming from. I think time-wasting got too much in the last years but I think more so the rhythm breaking was a massive, massive feature.
“I thought it makes sense to give earlier yellow cards, you don’t want to have a yellow card for time-wasting and especially not after 15 minutes so it’s clear you will not do it then.
“I hope at the end we find a good solution together that we don’t have 10 to 15 minutes extra time and yellow cards everywhere, we need to find a solution.
“But more football is difficult to take in because we are on the edge, there is no doubt about it.”
