Jurgen Klopp wasn’t giving too much away about timescales for Liverpool players coming back from injury, but says three key players won’t be available on Tuesday.
The Reds face FC Midtjylland in the Champions League and the squad for the game looks set to be largely the same as at the weekend against Sheffield United.
Centre-back Joel Matip and midfielders Naby Keita and Thiago Alcantara were all missing against the Blades and Klopp was asked in his pre-match press conference about their availability for the visit of the Danish side.
But the second group phase fixture won’t see any of them involved, with Klopp and the backroom staff sticking to the day-by-day approach of assessment for players.
“Don’t think so,” he said to a question of seeing them back in action in midweek.
“It’s still what I said last week: we look day by day but it looks like we’ll need a few more days.
“So for tomorrow night, they’ll probably not be ready.”
Matip has been absent since playing in the Merseyside derby, meaning it’ll be 10 days out for him so far by the time the Reds face Midtjylland.
Thiago was injured at the end of the same fixture and, although there were fears it could be a bad one, reports since have said he should be fine soon—but with the games coming so quickly together, he will miss a third match here too.
As for Keita, there’s more mystery as no injury has been reported and he was said to be back in training after testing negative for coronavirus, but he has not played since coming off at half-time in the hammering by Aston Villa just before the international break.
With bigger benches allowed in Europe, the likes of Neco Williams, Rhys Williams, Curtis Jones, Divock Origi and others will be involved in the matchday squad in the absence of Matip, Keita and Thiago.
Longer-term absentees for the Reds are still Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Virgil van Dijk.
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