Jurgen Klopp has shared injury updates on a number of Liverpool players ahead of Sunday’s pre-season friendly against Leicester in Singapore (via LFC’s official website).
Dominik Szoboszlai, Thiago, Stefan Bajcetic and Conor Bradley were all discussed in today’s press conference, with only the former making the trip to the Far East while the others recover back on Merseyside.
After missing last Monday’s clash against Greuther Furth with a minor ankle problem, the Hungarian is in line to feature tomorrow, with the Reds boss saying: “Yeah, Dom is back, will train tonight and if nothing happens here he will play tomorrow night yes, definitely.”
Bradley was in line to travel with the squad to Asia but, after picking up a minor injury issue, he was left at home to recover, with Klopp stating: “With Conor it is a real shame, to be honest. Conor did really well. But things like this happen.”
On the other two players, the manager said: “Stefan is in the last steps back into team training.
“We left him and Thiago at home because the travel would cost him back and forth like two, three, maybe four days of training and we thought it makes no sense in a very important phase of his rehab for both of the boys.
“But I’m in constant contact, so he will be back in team training, that’s the plan in the moment, when we arrive home. That’s good.”
All in all, the updates from Klopp are largely encouraging. He’ll be delighted that Szoboszlai should be good to go for tomorrow, having only had one opportunity to look at the Hungarian so far because of his absence for the Greuther Furth game.
With the other three players, caution appears to have been the order of the day, and rightly so. It would’ve made no sense to ask them to haul nearly halfway across the world for two non-competitive fixtures when proper recovery is of far greater importance.
Bajcetic and Thiago seem to be getting progressively closer to returning, and their eventual returns will give Klopp a wealth of choice in midfield, assuming there’s no further casualties in that area in the meantime.
The timing of Bradley’s knock is very unfortunate after the youngster started the first two pre-season games, and gave his manager and Liverpool fans great encouragement with his performances, but hopefully he can shake it off soon and get back into the frame once the campaign starts properly.
With three more friendlies to play before the competitive action gets underway, everyone of a Reds persuasion will be praying that nobody picks up a major injury over the next fortnight.
#Ep83 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones