Klopp’s good news on Naby Keita – plus Fabinho, Lovren & Matip to feature at Shrewsbury

Jurgen Klopp has provided a surprisingly positive update on the fitness of Naby Keita, along with his plans to rotate for the trip to Shrewsbury.

Keita has been sidelined since suffering a groin injury in the warmup to the 2-0 win over Sheffield United on January 2, missing the last five games as a result.

He joined the likes of James Milner, Xherdan Shaqiri, Joel Matip, Dejan Lovren and Fabinho on the sidelines, but fortunately the majority of those are close to making their comeback.

Sunday brings an FA Cup fourth round clash with Shrewsbury, and while Milner and Shaqiri are set to miss out—along with Sadio Mane—Keita could be among those to feature.

“I think for Shaq and Milly it’s too early; Naby we will have to see,” Klopp told reporters on Friday.

“I think my information is that he will be part of training today.

“Then we have to see, it was not too long [back] then, but how he looks and so on.

“The boys that didn’t play yesterday obviously longer than half-time will be in a very, very important session today, a kind of intense session.

“It’s minus-two [days] to the game, so there’s always intensity.

“So we will see if [Keita] can be part of that completely, then he will be an option; if not, then he will not.”

Klopp confirmed Adrian would resume FA Cup duties in goal, while he indicated that Lovren, Matip and Fabinho could all start having made their return from injury.

“We will have a team with fresh legs, and we have players coming back from injury, so it makes sense to play them,” he said.

“Because they are pretty good and we want to go through that round. We are qualified for the round, so we want to go through.

“We know it’s a tough place to go, how it always is in cup competitions, and so that’s it.”

Lovren was the last to return to full training, but Klopp confirmed he had been “completely normal” for a week so “should be fine.”

Along with those coming back from long-term layoffs, the manager is likely to reward a host of young players with game time at New Meadow, including Neco Williams and Curtis Jones.