Alexis Mac Allister admits he fell asleep in Liverpool team meeting before Man City clash

Alexis Mac Allister has admitted he struggled with the quick turnaround between international duty and Liverpool’s seismic showdown with Manchester City.

The Reds midfielder represented Argentina during the international break and played in Brazil on Wednesday morning – just days before Liverpool travelled to Manchester for a mouthwatering match against the reigning Premier League champions.

Mac Allister once again started in a deeper role at the Etihad for the match, which ended in a 1-1 draw after Trent Alexander-Arnold cancelled out Erling Haaland’s first-half strike. But the midfield maestro admitted afterwards that the swift turnaround and excessive travelling had taken its toll following the decision to make Liverpool v Manchester City the weekend’s early kick-off.

Speaking after the match to LFCTV, Mac Allister said: “Honestly, it’s so hard to play like this. Yesterday we were in a meeting talking about Man City and the way we wanted to play, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open!

“It’s very tough, jet-lag, long trip. But it is what it is, we like playing football this is what we want, we want to win and that’s why we did our best today.”

Mac Allister was far from the only Liverpool star likely to be experiencing such levels of fatigue, with Liverpool’s three other South American stars – Alisson Becker, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez – all in the same boat. The quartet were flown back to Merseyside on a private jet in a bid to get them ready for the weekend.

Jurgen Klopp has been particularly outspoken on the brutal turnaround several of his stars face following the international break whenever Liverpool are forced to play in the Premier League’s early kick-off.

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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp

The Reds have now featured in the 12:30pm Saturday slot directly after the international break on three successive occasions – and Klopp vented his frustrations at the Premier League’s broadcasting partners, Sky Sports and TNT Sports, again ahead of the trip to the Etihad.

Speaking in the build-up to the game, Klopp said: “OK, no one can say at the moment, but how can you put a game like this on Saturday at 12.30pm?. Honestly, the people making the decisions, they cannot feel football, it’s just not possible. And if that’s the moment where the world pays the most to see a football game then nobody has told us. I don’t know if that’s the case, I really don’t.”

He continued: “There could have been a moment when you have these two teams who have, all together, about 30 international players. They all come back on the same plane by the way, all the South American players. They all fly back. We put them on the plane from Uruguay, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia. We just have to make sure we’re ready for this game.”

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