Liverpool’s Champions League opponents Real Madrid have suffered a fresh fitness setback ahead of the clash in the Spanish capital next week.
Los Blancos are up against Eibar in La Liga this weekend, before preparing to face the Reds.
The Spaniards have shared some photographs from their latest first-team training session on their website, but Toni Kroos, Eden Hazard, Dani Carvajal and Fede Valverde were notable absentees.
In the copy for the gallery dump, Real Madrid stated: “Carvajal, Hazard, Kroos and Valverde continue with their recovery processes.”
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Players typically need a couple of training sessions with their team-mates before being considered 100% fit, so the quartet will have to make dramatic recoveries if they’re to feature against Liverpool in five days’ times.
As ever, injuries are never anything to celebrate – and we’d back the Reds to beat Real Madrid with a fully-fit squad – but it does hand Jurgen Klopp and co. an advantage.
If anything, it perhaps levels the playing field, with Liverpool missing Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Jordan Henderson for the clash with Los Blancos.