“Mane, I don’t know how it works and who said it, but it was absolutely nothing”. The Brazilian, who isn’t injured at all, was on hand to assist Barcelona superstar Neymar as he bagged the victor in a 2-1 win over Colombia, but a long flight from South America could could have an adverse effect on the Reds talisman despite the club making “special arrangements” for him to return to Liverpool on Thursday morning. “Now it is about making Mama fit – which he isn’t after this long time with suspension and injury – and we will see what happens”.
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Grujic has been included in all three of Jurgen Klopp’s Premier League squads so far and the backing of his manager has helped convince the Serbia worldwide he can bridge the gulf in standard between the football he has been used to and the world’s most competitive league.
The defender was told by Klopp to go out on loan in August in order to show he was prepared to work to win back his place but the 26-year-old turned down moves to Stoke, West Brom and Besiktas.
“It’s not a problem”.
However, Klopp insisted he has no issues with the defender and said Sakho does not need to regain his trust.
“We played against Tottenham, a long time really good”. That’s hard here because the other players are fit.
You have to speak about it before the window closes because that’s the moment you can make decisions and that’s what I did. I’m not silly enough to forget good performances and things like this.
Though Klopp was relatively forthcoming regarding updates on Sakho, he would not be drawn on responding fully to comments made by Mino Raiola earlier this week. “It’s a free world so he can say what he wants”. Not interested. All good.
Liverpool have spent the opening month of the season on their travels but return to Merseyside on Saturday to welcome champions Leicester City.
“Eight-thousand more fans in the stadium”.
Ragnar Klavan also picked up the recurrence of a knee injury whilst on worldwide duty and is a doubt for the weekend. “It’s more power, we should use this”.
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Loris Karius has returned to training having sustained a broken hand in pre-season, but Simon Mignolet is likely to continue in goal for the time being at least.
