Jurgen Klopp has admitted that he’s unsure if Liverpool will have any of their current injury absentees back for the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea on Sunday.
The Reds were without a multitude of key players for the comeback win over Luton last night, and with a quick turnaround for the Wembley showpiece, the window may be too tight for any of the treatment room dwellers to return this weekend.
When asked in his post-match press conference after Wednesday’s game if he had any updates on the injured players, the German replied (via liverpoolfc.com): “No. I don’t even know if these boys can play again, to be honest. The situation is not great, absolutely not. We don’t have to make that now nicer than it is.”
Klopp continued: “There are now a lot of super-important games coming up, and we don’t know, we go day by day. I cannot say anything about it and I don’t know.
“After Brentford I had no clue the situation would be like it was now, so let’s see. There’s one phrase that stands: as long as we have 11, we will go for it. That’s all I can promise.”
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Some of those on Liverpool’s injury list are nursing what appear to be minor concerns, so we live in hope that Darwin Nunez, Mo Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai might be fit enough to at least be included in the matchday squad on Sunday.
Klopp hinted that he’s taking the situation ‘day by day’, which raises the possibility that he could have a more positive update in his pre-cup final press conference tomorrow.
Anyone we can get back for the Chelsea game would be greatly appreciated, but even if none of the current absentees return for the match at Wembley, those who featured against Luton showed enough resilience and eventual quality to indicate that Reds fans can still travel to London in plenty of confidence.
Even without Salah, Nunez and Diogo Jota, each of Liverpool’s starting front three found the net last night, while Szoboszlai’s absence was mitigated by a fine performance from midfield trio Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch and Wataru Endo.
We’ve had plenty of hurdles put in our way this season, but we’ve almost always found a way to overcome them and keep the quadruple charge going. So long as nobody else joins the injury list between now and Sunday, we could well have enough in the squad to return home with silverware that night.
#Ep102 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones🎙️