Jurgen Klopp has officially ruled Alisson and Fabinho out of Saturday’s clash with Watford, confirming the pair will fly directly to Spain to take on Atletico Madrid.
With Alisson and Fabinho both in the Brazil squad that thrashed Uruguay 4-1 on Friday morning, it was always unlikely they would be involved at Vicarage Road.
Add on top of that the need to quarantine for 10 days upon returning to the UK from red-listed countries Venezuela and Colombia – only leaving to play or train once per day – and the situation became more difficult.
The prospect of flying from quarantine in England to play Atletico Madrid in the Champions League on October 19 was fanciful, and Liverpool have decided to avoid that altogether.
Instead, Klopp has confirmed that Alisson and Fabinho will fly to Spain from Brazil, feature against Atletico, and then travel back to Merseyside later than the rest of the squad when their quarantine restrictions expire.
“We’ve known it for a while, we made our decision a while ago. We had to sort quarantine issues, all these kinds of things,” Klopp told reporters on Friday.
“The decision we made is the boys will not be here.
“They will go directly to Madrid, wait there for us, be able to play hopefully then against Atletico, will come slightly later back than us, 10 days over then.
“And then they can come back and are in our normal procedure again, and that’s it.”
A request from LaLiga to postpone fixtures for both Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid this weekend, due to their Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina internationals not being available, was upheld earlier in the week.
Meanwhile, Liverpool’s bid to push back the kickoff time at Watford was denied, with Klopp lamenting the favourable treatment in Spain compared to the Premier League.
“Atletico is not playing at the weekend, our next opponent in the Champions League – something like that would never happen here!” he rightly pointed out.
“If it would happen, then it would be ‘my god, how can they do it for them?!’ and stuff like this.”
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