‘Pretty much everybody had a knock,’ says Klopp – after brutal Merseyside Derby

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Jurgen Klopp will be with Naby Keita for the Ajax clash tomorrow night, after the Guinean began training again following some COVID-19 confusion.

But Alisson is still out, as is Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – and Virgil van Dijk will be lucky to feature in the Champions League at all this season.

That’s following the injury he received at the feet of Jordan Pickford, while Thiago also faces a race against time to make it in time for the clash.

Klopp has explained though that after the Merseyside Derby, nearly every player involved picked up some kind of a knock – such was the frenetic, physical manner in which the game was played.

“It’s pretty early after the Everton game, there are always concerns,” Klopp told the official website. “The game was really intense again, for different reasons.

“Pretty much everybody had a knock, but we will see; today is now second-day recovery for most. In this moment, nobody came to me and said all the rest is out or all the rest is in.

“Always we use this day for analysis, coaches’ analysis, and second-day recovery for the boys. We have it, because if we played on Tuesday we don’t have it and we [would] have to train today properly, but today we do it exactly like this. And tomorrow we need to have then all the information and then we make a line-up.”

As a result of Klopp’s comments, we think there’ll be changes for the Champions League. We can definitely see Gini Wijnaldum starting, for example – and think Thiago is likely to sit it out…

At the back, Klopp has little choice but to start Joe Gomez alongside Joel Matip, unless the latter is injured and Fabinho has to partner the former – which means Hendo will play as the midfield holder.

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