Liverpool’s chief medicine man has lifted the lid on Jurgen Klopp’s training methods at Melwood, revealing how his team have “protected” the players from long-term injury.

Andy Massey, the club’s head of medical services, is tasked with managing a group of 24 professionals who offer Klopp’s men with physio, sports science and medicinal support.

Also the first-team doctor, the Northern Irishman has given extensive access to the German coach’s philosophy.

Massey also admits the manager’s initial demands led to an increase in hamstring injuries, but after two years of extensive work, the squad is far more equipped to deal with the intensity Klopp wants.

“I always say that the manager is the most important person at the club and everyone else has to fit around his philosophy,” Massey said.

“Jurgen’s philosophy is very much that we’ve got to run further, run faster, run quicker than every other team because if we can do that then the skill will take over.

“So we’ve got to put the players in a position where they can do that. When Jurgen first came into the club, we tried to put that in there but the boys weren’t up to that physical level yet to meet the demands.

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“At one stage, we had 13 hamstring injuries but now, with the benefit of two pre-seasons, we’re seeing the boys work so much harder and they look like they’re more protected.”

(Image: Andrew Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)

Klopp has been lambasted by Dutch coach - and notorious Twitter critic - Raymond Verheijen for supposedly overworking his players with the physical demands.

But Massey has explained how injuries will remain part of the game, but the focus is now on bringing them back to fitness over a quicker period of time.

“A lot of the stuff we do from a medical point of view, we hope that it makes people less injury-prone but the statistics don’t back up,” he added to Liverpoolfc.com.

“There’s a UEFA group that looks at injuries with data from the last 15 years and injuries remain constant.

“Arsene Wenger was saying this recently, but people take it the wrong way. You’re still going to get the same number of injuries, but what we try to do is get them back quicker now, which we are making a bit of headway in to.

“So far this year, touch wood, we’ve had very few soft-tissue injuries and that’s coming from the fact the players are more accustomed to doing the massive workloads because they’ve had two full pre-seasons under their belts.”

Already this season, Sadio Mane has returned from his hamstring injury ahead of schedule, while both Philippe Coutinho and Adam Lallana are set to return after the international break as planned.

With emphasis on ensuring players return from injuries as quickly as possible, Massey reveals how one of Klopp’s lieutenants, Zeljko Buvac, plays a huge role.

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“Zeljko is brilliant at that,” Massey added.

“He’ll work very closely with Andreas (Kornmayer) in planning the sessions and they’ll try to periodise them going into matches. Now, what works for say Jordan Henderson might not work for say Sadio Mane, so sometimes you have to individualise those.

“At any one stage, we can have four different groups: the starting 11, the starting 11 who are playing on the Tuesday or Wednesday, an injured group and players who aren’t in the squads at all. “They all need different inputs, which is what Zeljko has in mind. He’s got a countdown brain, is what I call it!

“He can judge it by that and then Andreas is good about relaying it to us, and we can add in the injuries and we come together with it.

“Midweek matches mean that instead of dealing with one group, you’re potentially dealing with four different groups.”