Liverpool manger Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that Joel Matip may yet be a little while off returning for the Reds, in his pre-Napoli press conference.
The Cameroonian centre half has been out for around a month, and the boss is refusing to put a timeline on the defender’s return – possibly fearing that rushing him back may risk further injury to one of his senior players.
“Joel is improving, but still of course some time away from the team,” he’s quoted as saying by This is Anfield.
“This week is an important one, we will build, we have to measure the improvement of the healing with a scan probably.
“And then we will see how it is. From that moment, we can make decisions. It’s nothing you can rush, you just have to wait, our body is like this from time to time. So nothing new really about him.”
So it sounds like we won’t be seeing Joel any time soon – but, with the form of Dejan Lovren, it’s unlikely we’ll lose any sleep over that with our most difficult fixtures behind us for a while.
Matip’s injury, while unfortunate, may also provide Joe Gomez with some more chances to prove his worth to the squad – and reclaim some of that form he showed us throughout the early stages of last season when him and Virgil van Dijk looked impenetrable.