MY ACCOUNT
Jurgen Klopp has conceded Diogo Jota will likely miss the Community Shield final for Liverpool, while Alisson “should be fit” to face Manchester City.
Jota sat out of the pre-season opener in Bangkok on Tuesday, a 4-0 defeat to Manchester United, before Alisson joined the forward on the injury list ahead of the 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace on Friday.
Klopp had previously suggested he was concerned by a recurrence of Jota’s hamstring issues, the forward having initially aggravated the problem he suffered when away with Portugal on international duty in June.
After victory over Palace in Singapore, where Mohamed Salah and Jordan Henderson were on target, Klopp provided an update on the injured duo.
“Ali, I think, has the chance for City and Diogo not,” Reds manager Klopp told reporters as he discussed the upcoming Community Shield on July 30.
“Ali, he feels a muscle, abdominal. It’s nothing serious but, again, we prepare a full season. So he can train but just not like before, so he should not play in the moment. Not normal goalie training but he has a pre-season, so he doesn’t lose time.
“But yeah, these kind of things happen. The boys have to travel a lot and train and you never know exactly.
“It’s only little things, nothing serious but we have to be careful because the rest of the season is much longer than the start.”
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was another to limp off in the pre-season clash with Patrick Vieira’s side, and Klopp hopes the “top-class” England international will soon recover from a muscle injury setback.
“Of course, it’s very disappointing for us because Oxlade trained all the time really well since the pre-season started,” he added.
“It happened obviously with Ox in the past when it gets more intense and something can happen. Now this is just a muscle thing and that’s OK. We had worse situations, so I’m OK with it.
“I don’t know exactly how long it will take but he will be back and then it’s all fine. He is obviously a top-class player and he can help us.”
As injury fears mount, Klopp’s attention turned to the upcoming Qatar World Cup, with July effectively serving as the first pre-season before unselected players will have to keep fitness across November and December.
Klopp, a regular critic of the Nations League and international football schedule, labelled this pre-season as like no other as he lamented the lack of concern for player welfare.
“Normally our pre-season is always the basis for the rest of the season, this time we have the first part of the season that’s interrupted,” he continued.
“We are already kind of used to it because with the pandemic we had breaks and starting again.
“So it’s not completely new to us anymore and when these players have time off, for example, if they are not at the World Cup, they never have real time off, they have a training schedule to fulfil so they don’t lose a lot in these periods, which is very important for us.
“That’s why we can give them at least as long as possible time off with family and holiday and stuff like this, but they just need it.
“Apart from that, the World Cup is for all top teams in football pretty much the same, especially in England it’s the same because we play immediately.
“If you are in the final or the third-place [game] then you play again a week later – and then you play 26th, 31st, 2nd and stuff like this.
“Obviously the guys in the Premier League like the spectacular. I’ve said it often enough, nobody really cares about the players in these moments but that’s how it is.”
