Jurgen Klopp will have a relatively strong – if small – group of Liverpool players reporting back for training today.
The Reds return to the AXA Training Centre this week as they prepare for Saturday’s visit to Manchester City. Obviously, the ongoing international commitments of his squad means that Klopp’s pool of players will initially be rather depleted.
But as per the Liverpool Echo, it may actually be a little stronger than usual. Owing to them being overlooked by their country’s, the quartet of Alisson Becker, Fabinho, Roberto Firmino and Trent Alexander-Arnold will all be back.
In addition, Joe Gomez, James Milner, Adrian, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Fabio Carvalho, Arthur Melo, Joel Matip, and Nat Phillips will also reportedly be there.
Luis Diaz is another who could feature. But it’s claimed that his return will come during an unspecified point of the week. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen how involved Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo will be, having both pulled out of international duty.
Carvalho must take chance to shine
For all of this little group of Liverpool players, perhaps it’s the biggest few days for young Fabio Carvalho.
The 20-year-old has barely had a look-in since the World Cup break. When he has played it’s been as a late substitute with no time to influence the game.
But the likes of Diaz, Nunez, Gakpo, Mohamed Salah and Diogo Jota are now away. He has to be using that time to catch Klopp’s eye.
Carvalho’s talents have been described as ‘special’ by teammate Harvey Elliott. The Portuguese certainly has plenty in his locker. But the Liverpool manager still appears to remain somewhat unconvinced by the former Fulham man. If he can grab the bull by the horns during training over these next few days, maybe he can start to change that.
In that respect, he’s a little unfortunate that Liverpool have such a tough run coming up. You can’t imagine Klopp would trust him to start against any of City, Arsenal or Chelsea no matter what he does in training this week.