Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool future assessed | Football Digest
Liverpool return to Premier League action against Wolves on Saturday, but there were six notable absences from Thursday’s training session amid fears of an injury crisis at Anfield. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thiago Alcantara, Darwin Nunez, Alexis Mac Allister, Stefan Bajcetic and Luis Diaz weren’t pictured with the rest of the squad, who underwent pre-match preparations at the AXA Training Centre.
Mac Allister, Bajcetic and Diaz are likely being rested due to the tight turnaround following their international duties and there are no reported concerns surrounding the trio’s fitness. However, the remaining three absentees have all been struggling with injury in recent weeks.
Nunez was substituted at half-time during Uruguay’s 2-1 loss to Ecuador, with head coach Marcelo Bielsa citing “muscular difficulties” as the reason for his early departure. Meanwhile, Alexander-Arnold is still struggling with the hamstring problem that ruled him out of Gareth Southgate’s 25-man England squad for games against Ukraine and Scotland.
Thiago remains sidelined by a long-term hip injury that required surgery and is expected to be out of action for a little while yet. Jurgen Klopp recently revealed that the Spaniard suffered a “setback” in his recovery process and so is set for a longer layoff than anticipated.
“Curtis [Jones] is back in training fully, Thiago not,” Klopp told reporters on September 1. “Thiago had a little setback. [He] started training with the team and had a little setback, so we had to slow down there a little bit.
“It’s not cool for him, not cool for us, but that’s how it is. Thiago will use the international break for that obviously, to be up to speed. That should hopefully be enough.”
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Despite Klopp’s insistence that he would be back up to speed following the international break, Thiago did not feature in today’s first-team training session. In more positive news for Liverpool fans, Ibrahima Konate is back and expected to be in contention for a starting place against Wolves.
This is especially important given that Joe Gomez will likely be required to fill in for Alexander-Arnold at right back. Curtis Jones also recently resumed full first-team training.
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