Liverpool have suffered the “big blow” of dropping Virgil van Dijk for greater than a month after Jurgen Klopp stated the centre-back bought “a harsh diagnosis” when he noticed a specialist about his hamstring harm.
Van Dijk is ready to overlook the Premier League conflict with Chelsea and might be a doubt for subsequent month’s Merseyside derby whereas Liverpool will hope to have the defender accessible once more for a four-day spell in February once they face Newcastle and Real Madrid.
Klopp had solely substituted Van Dijk at half-time in Monday’s 3-1 defeat to Brentford as a precautionary measure and stated: “Virg is a surprise. It was a big blow, he didn’t feel a lot. He never had an issue with muscles, never mentioned everything. It was one sprint too much in that moment. I took him off and maybe he would have tried [to carry on].
“The diagnosis is pretty harsh: we talk about weeks, more than a month, that is how it is hard. For Virg it is hard but he played an incredible amount of games over the last years. We cannot use him on the pitch but off the pitch we will.”
Klopp is poised to offer Cody Gakpo his debut in Liverpool’s FA Cup tie towards Wolves on Saturday.
The Netherlands winger joined for an preliminary £37 million from PSV Eindhoven and Klopp has been excited by seeing Gakpo within the flesh.
He added: “Cody is in for two training days and it is a joy to watch. It is really nice to have a guy on the pitch who is pretty natural on the offensive side of things and knows where the goal is. He is full of joy. He is good footballer, good in small spaces, likes to finish from distance and a good dribbler as well. When you sign a player you watch a lot of stuff and in the end it is nice to see them live in front of you.”
Klopp stated Liverpool “had no doubts” about signing Gakpo and revealed the ahead by no means requested concerning the chance they won’t qualify for the Champions League this season.
He stated: “What we can give to the players is the size of the club but inside we are really, really close together. Virgil probably told him that. I really like the fact he decided pretty quickly: ‘That is the right club for me.’”
Klopp has vowed to choose the very best aspect he can as Liverpool begin their defence of the FA Cup. Captain Jordan Henderson is obtainable once more after concussion and the supervisor stated: “We will line up as good and strong and experienced as we can.”
Liverpool will nonetheless be with out a number of injured gamers, together with Roberto Firmino, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Arthur Melo.
