Liverpool will be without the English duo of Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge as they host Arsenal at Anfield on Saturday.
Liverpool host Arsenal at Anfield in a crunch tie which could be one of the defining matches in the race for the top-four this season. And, Jurgen Klopp confirmed in his pre-match conference that they will be without key midfielder Jordan Henderson and injury-plagued striker Daniel Sturridge.
Henderson is out with a foot injury while Sturridge has a hip sprain, which will keep him out of action for the weekend, at least. But, the German did provide a half-positive update as he said that Dejan Lovren could be in line to feature against Arsenal, subject to a late fitness test prior to the game.
“ For Jordan it will be too soon, for sure. That will take time. Daniel was ill – really, really ill. Now he has a strain in his hip muscle. It happened in the rehab session. It’s not the biggest one, it’s very small, but it keeps him out of normal training for probably another week. In this week he can train, but not in team training.”
The boss delivered the Dejan Lovren update and said that he was unsure of the player’s participation in the game at the moment.
“ Dejan [did take] part of team training the day before yesterday, and then yesterday he was in full team training. Now we have to see how he reacts on this. He will be involved in training again, if nobody tells me anything different. Then we have to make a decision.”
“ It’s not the longest, he was out for pretty much four weeks, [he has been] training for three days and in the end I have to make a decision. I am not sure about it [at the moment].”
Jordan Henderson will be a huge miss and Jurgen Klopp could be forced to play Emre Can in Henderson’s role while Lovren’s absence can be mitigated by the presence of Ragnar Klavan, who has been immense for the Reds in a squad rotation role.
Elsewhere, the trio of Danny Ings, Ovie Ejaria and Marko Grujic are still out and will miss the crunch tie for the Reds. Liverpool could jump up to third on the table with a win, depending on other results.
