Klopp admits Thiago hasn’t had ideal preparation but might play Cardiff anyway

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Jurgen Klopp may play Thiago for Liverpool vs Cardiff City on Sunday despite the Spaniard lacking ideal preparation. We haven’t seen him in a little while.

Liverpool host Cardiff City on Sunday as they look to finally make waves in the FA Cup under Jurgen Klopp. It’s not exactly clear what kind of team the boss will put out, however.

Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah can’t play – they’ll face each other in the Africa Cup of Nations final on the same day. Luis Diaz might be ready for a debut, though, and it sounds as though Harvey Elliott is pretty much good to go.

But with Liverpool playing two Premier League games in the following week, it’s hard to know how full-strength they’ll go against Championship opposition. One clue that Klopp may want to put out a strong side, though, is in his comments on Thiago.

Thiago could play for Liverpool vs Cardiff

We haven’t seen Thiago since December 16th thanks to injuries but he is back in training – just about. Klopp admits that the Spaniard hasn’t had ideal preparation for this one but he might play him anyway.

“Thiago trained with us,” said Klopp, per Liverpoolfc.com. “Unfortunately, when COVID is around you always think it is the only infection or virus you can get, but he had a little chest infection so he had to step a little bit aside again.

“That’s not perfect, of course, but I expect him to be in team training today again so we will see. The injury is completely fine, he looked really good in training, but that’s how sometimes things are. We will see how we can use him for Sunday.”

If Klopp was going to play a weakened side, we don’t think he’d consider Thiago at all here. Instead, it sounds like there’s a good chance he’ll play, even with the sub-par preparation.

Perhaps Liverpool really will go all-out in the cup this year, then. It certainly feels like a missing piece of the collection under Klopp – but the Reds sound ready to compete.