Jurgen Klopp offers a crucial update on his first-team defenders.
The likes of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Trent Alexander-Arnold were all on a rehabilitation programme for the last eight months and are now a part of Liverpool’s pre-season training at the team’s base.
Jurgen Klopp assesses how he will use the quartet in the coming days.
“No, they aren’t [at the same level as the others], but it’s different,” said the boss exclusively to Liverpoolfc.com.
“Let’s start with: all four look really good, I have to say. Look really good.
“Now we are in constant talks with the medical department, the fitness department, the rehab department about what is right for them today: do they have to do maybe a little bit more than the rest of the group, do they have to do a little bit less?
“So, especially Virg and Joe will not have double sessions now for the first few days with the team; they have a second session of the day but it’s with Andreas Schlumberger, with the rehab department, physiotherapy, these kinds of things. That’s for these two. [They] look really good. I don’t know exactly when we can make the next steps but it will happen in the next four weeks, for sure – we will get a big step forward.
“Joel looks good, absolutely, he is the closest probably to normal training and then we will see when we get him started for playing.
“Trent was a serious enough injury but now not a major one, I would say. He is close but in the moment, probably the next five or six days he has a special programme: from time to time with the team, probably from time to time by himself. But then in five or six or seven days he should be in normal team training.”
See More: Top 5 Liverpool Players Leaving: Latest Transfer News
