Jurgen Klopp will leave his squad selection for Arsenal’s Sunday visit very late as key players stuggle to regain fitness from varying degrees of injuries in time, Vanguard reports
Klopp in a pre-match press conference on Friday expressed his dislike for international breaks after Jordan Henderson, Andy Robertson and Sadio Mane picked up knocks while representing their countries.
“Hendo (Henderson) and Robbo (Robertson) didn’t train with the team yet, they did their recovery stuff, rehab stuff and didn’t train with the team yet,” Jürgen Klopp told reporters.
“Sadio is good and Fab (Fabinho) only came back late and he did recovery and so I hope he can train today, that’s the plan,” added Klopp. “I didn’t hear anything different yet, but in the end we all have to wait until tomorrow.”
Arsenal will be a tough nut for Liverpool to crack following their return to form that has seen them win their last three league matches and enjoy a 10-game unbeaten run in all competitions.
The availability of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and midfielder Thomas Partey is still in doubt after the duo were absent in their respective country’s last qualifying match.
“We have to assess [Aubameyang] and see how he is and make a decision,” Arteta told the media. “We have a lot of players who have been through some different games, issues, little injuries, so today we have to test everybody and see how we are to play tomorrow.
“Same again [for Partey], he could not play for the national team, he really tried to do that because they had a massive game and he really pushed for that one, but he wasn’t close enough to do that.