by Jürgen Klopp offered a fitness update on several members of his first-team squad ahead of Liverpool’s lunchtime trip to Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Speaking to Liverpoolfc.com in an exclusive interview at the AXA Training Centre, the manager reported no fresh injury concerns ahead of the journey to the City Ground, but confirmed he’d need to check on some players before determining his line-up.
Klopp also gave the latest on the conditions of Naby Keita, Joel Matip, Ibrahima Konate and Calvin Ramsay.
Read on to see what he had to say…
On any new injury concerns ahead of the trip to Forest…
The game was really intense; both games were really intense, so we have some players we need to have a closer look at again to see if we can bring them in again from the beginning or bring on. It’s really a short turnaround because we play tomorrow at 12.30, so we will see. I will wait for the last minute pretty much to make my final decisions. There are no ‘injuries’, but knocks here and there and I will get further information later today.
On Keita being involved in team training again…
He was only involved in parts, but will be from Monday on – I think, like Ibou – both will be involved in full training after the Nottingham Forest game on, which is obviously good. But then Naby especially needs time, Ibou not that much because he was not out that long. Naby is a bit behind Oxlade – Oxlade trains now for four or five days with us, so that is better but he was out for a long time as well.
On Curtis Jones’ return to action as a substitute against West Ham United…
Curtis could get some minutes and hopefully can get some minutes again, so these kind of things are the situation. It is all positive, but we cannot rush it.
On Matip’s fitness…
Good, everything is going well, but he needs a bit of time. I think with him it will be tight until the World Cup break, hopefully the last two or three games he might be in contention, but I don’t know yet. It is all going in the right direction.
He was [close] all the time, but he was not available. We did not sign the boy for no reason. He is a fantastic boy, I really like him, I like his character and the attitude he shows. He is buzzing about each minute in training he can get now and each minute of game time he can. It is really a pleasure to have him around, so we will see. Maybe it makes more sense, but it depends on the first-team squad how it looks there, that he gets more minutes with the U21s and we will see how we can organise that. He is getting closer and closer, of course, and it is really good fun.
On Darwin Nunez’s fitness…
He is one of the cases where we need to have a look because he was not injured, but he felt something and I don’t know if he feels that still today and what the medical department tells me then, we have to see.
