Photo: Boost for Liverpool as two stars pictured on return to training

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Two Liverpool players have been pictured back in training. The Reds have some massive games on the horizon.

No, transfer deadline day didn’t go the way we’d hoped. But Liverpool’s Twitter account still had some good news for fans on Thursday.

They tweeted out a photo of Virgil van Dijk and Roberto Firmino decked out in their training gear. The pair appear to be back training – though, it’s unclear how close they are to team training.

The Liverpool Echo’s Keifer MacDonald claims that neither were involved with the squad. This was them stepping up their recovery, however, in a major step towards fitness.

Liverpool players return from injury

There’s certainly no indication that they’re anywhere near ready to face Wolves this weekend. We can’t imagine they’ll even face Everton next Monday, given the extended spells out.

But it’s a massive sign that they’ll recover to play in the Champions League knockout tie against Real Madrid later this month. Previous reports suggested that Van Dijk, in particular, was still a massive doubt for that one.

If the pair are back working at the training ground, though, we can at least feel a little confident. Of course, setbacks happen and you should never rule them out at Liverpool. Especially this season.

Getting Van Dijk back would be massive for that Real game. Ibrahima Konaté is now out injured himself and unlikely to feature, robbing Jurgen Klopp of his centre-back pairing in recent weeks.

Similarly, we’d love to have Firmino back playing the False 9 role. Cody Gakpo has been doing his best impression of the Brazilian in recent weeks – but it’s not the same.

Having the pair available unquestionably makes Liverpool stronger and we imagine both would start against Real. So fingers crossed there aren’t further setbacks from here. Things almost look positive.