Liverpool have had a turbulent start to the campaign and Jurgen Klopp could have spent his whole pre-Manchester United press conference by supplying updates on the unavailable players.
The 55-year-old spoke to the media ahead of the trip to Old Trafford and, as reported by Liverpoolfc.com, he said: ‘Offering a fitness update during his pre-match press conference, Klopp said: “Yeah, Bobby trained completely normal, is ready.”
‘He later added: “Naby was ill for a week, last game on the bench, is fully in training, looks really good. All fine.”
‘The Reds boss also reported no fresh injury concerns within his squad, though remains without Joel Matip, Thiago Alcantara, Ibrahima Konate, Curtis Jones, Diogo Jota, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Calvin Ramsay and Caoimhin Kelleher.
‘”All the others trained normal as well. No, nobody came back,” Klopp said.
‘Asked about Jones and Jota in particular, he reported: “Getting closer. Ask after the game again but no chance for this game”.’
It’s not the best of updates in terms on the vast majority of players as we still don’t have a return date but the immediate update is relatively positive.
Having Bobby Firmino back will ease any worries about someone leading the line in Manchester, the possibility of Joe Gomez starting the game in defence is great news too.
We can only hope that the fitness and injury issues continues to be a list of players that decreases game on game and that our suspensions don’t get any higher either.
Our next game should see a return to action for Naby Keita too and that should cover us in all areas of the pitch, for now.
To be entering the third game of the campaign and see these two sides facing each other with just two points between them, it shows that there’s a lot to play for in the next match.
Fingers crossed we come back down the M62 with all three points.