Welcome festive boost as Thiago, Milner and Shaqiri return to team training

December 23, 2020
Joanna Durkan

Liverpool have been handed an early Christmas present in the form of Thiago, James Milner and Xherdan Shaqiri all returning to team training on Wednesday.

Jurgen Klopp spoke of his hopes of seeing the trio return to the fold prior to Christmas and was handed his wish at Kirkby as the Reds look ahead to the visit of West Brom on Sunday.

The Reds have not been able to call upon Thiago since the Merseyside derby, while Shaqiri has been absent following on from the November international break before Milner joined them in the medical room after the trip to Brighton.

Their absence came at a time when the schedule was relentless and amid injuries to both Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and most recently Diogo Jota.

And now, their return has come at the ideal time as they still have more than three days to settle back into team training before the Baggies’ visit which comes prior to a run of a further three games in nine days.

Training time ?? pic.twitter.com/KvX0bjbSbL

— Liverpool FC (@LFC) December 23, 2020

While Klopp’s men have battled through their crippling injury list to sit at the top of the table at Christmas, the boost to his options will now offer the chance to rotate with greater efficiency and effectiveness.

They could very well be in contention for a place on the bench at Anfield, at the very least, against West Brom, with Klopp no doubt to provide an update in his press conference on Thursday.

The manager oversaw a 27-man training squad on Wednesday, a noticeable improvement to the 16 outfield players which were available to him less than a month ago.

Thiago will, of course, garner the most attention after featuring for just 135 minutes this season following on from his summer move, with his return to the fold highly anticipated since sustaining a knee injury back in October.

With Naby Keita, Joel Matip and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain having made successful returns to action, it leaves the Reds without Kostas Tsimikas, Jota, Gomez and Van Dijk for the foreseeable future as personnel finally takes an upward turn.

And youngsters Jake Cain, Leighton Clarkson, Billy Koumetio and Marcelo Pitaluga were all put through their paces with members of the first team.