The Reds manager has offered an update on his plans to ease Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez back into action from long-term injuries.
Jurgen Klopp plans to give Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez more minutes on the pitch ahead of Liverpool’s upcoming friendlies.
The central defenders made a welcome return in last week’s 4-3 friendly defeat to Hertha BSC. They each came on the 69th-minute to end a long spell on the sidelines. Van Dijk had been out since last October with an anterior cruciate ligament injury, while Gomez suffered a knee problem in November.
The duo will have another chance to get more game time on board for the friendly against Bologna on Thursday.
“Hopefully, yes,” Klopp told the club’s website on whether Van Dijk and Gomez can play this week. “That’s how it looks in the moment.
“I want to make it really clear, we push nothing. We just don’t. We wait a little bit, the players come, we have now with Dr. Andreas Schlumberger a real specialist who is in constant talks and always observing everything.
“We know exactly how they feel – how they really feel and not what they tell us because they obviously are desperate to play again. Sometimes in moments we swap Virgil and Joe a little bit so maybe the intensity doesn’t get too high, but in general it looks really good.
“How many minutes on Thursday? I don’t know, but there will be some minutes for sure.”
Brazilian trio Alisson Becker, Roberto Firmino, and Fabinho will return for Liverpool from their extended summer breaks following their involvement in the Copa America.
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