Jurgen Klopp confirms three Liverpool FC players will miss Man City clash
Liverpool will be without three long-term absentees in Saturday’s lunchtime clash with Manchester City, although four other teammates have returned to training this week.
Andy Robertson is not expected back from his shoulder injury until late January while Thiago will also not feature for the rest of 2023. Stefan Bajcetic is also set to miss the trip to the Etihad as he continues to nurse a serious long-term knee injury.
Jurgen Klopp confirmed that “only” the long-term absentees would not play this weekend, indicating that the rest of his squad is fit. Ryan Gravenberch, Curtis Jones, Joe Gomez and Ibrahima Konate all returned from setbacks this week and may feature at the Etihad.
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Klopp has criticised the early kick-off scheduling with those playing in South America internationals facing a tight turnaround. However, the club confirmed that Alisson [of Brazil], Alexis Mac Allister [Argentina], Luis Diaz [Colombia] and Darwin Nunez [Uruguay] all trained on Thursday.
As for City, Pep Guardiola hopes Erling Haaland will be fit enough to face Liverpool, having nursed “niggles” over the international break. He went down holding his foot against the Faroe Islands while on Norway duty before being ruled out of Sunday’s Euro 2024 qualifier with Scotland.
Guardiola also has several other injury concerns including Mateo Kovacic, Nathan Ake and Ederson. "We have a few problems, The same as many clubs,” the City boss said on Friday.
“We will see in the training session and we will see tomorrow. At 6pm I will know for sure which players I will have tomorrow. Always it's plan A."
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