Liverpool have two confirmed injuries ahead of their huge clash with Manchester City this weekend. Jurgen Klopp promises solutions.
When Gareth Southgate left Trent Alexander-Arnold out of his England squad, it appeared to confirm the worst for Liverpool. After all, if the Scouser couldn’t feature over the international break, how could he play on Sunday?
And it appears that the assumption was correct. Jurgen Klopp confirmed on Thursday evening that Alexander-Arnold, along with Thiago, will miss the mammoth Premier League fixture.
Klopp told Liverpoolfc.com that he had no news on the pair. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as he pointed out, but it certainly wasn’t good.
“No ‘news’ means they are doing well but they won’t have enough time for being back against City, but I expect them both to be back after the international break,” said Klopp.
“But we have a good team so we still have solutions and we have to use them and yeah, after the international break the boys will be back I think.”
Two Liverpool injuries for City clash
Everyone already knew the Thiago one, really, but Klopp pretty emphatically ruled out any chance of him playing. It’s just such a shame that he’s done the same with Alexander-Arnold.
The right-back has started the season on fire, proving to be the dominant creative force in the Premier League. There’s little doubt that he’ll be a massive miss for the Reds.
Especially as there isn’t another senior right-back in the squad. Neco Williams is the only other natural right-back but he’s both unready and coming back from injury.
It’s a nerve-wracking one, then. Klopp will need to find those ‘solutions’ by moving players around – though, he did that with James Milner against Porto to great effect.
But regardless of how well Milner can do, he’s just not as good as Alexander-Arnold. Liverpool lose a lot of threat and shape without their no.66.
Fingers crossed Klopp has something special up his sleeve.
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