Speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of Liverpool vs Tottenham, Jurgen Klopp has said that Naby Keita could be back in action against the London club.
The Guinean midfielder missed the game against Fulham over the weekend, and before that he’d only featured for nine minutes against Wolves after picking up an issue against Leicester that has affected him for a number of weeks.
Luckily, it seems as though he could be back against Jose Mourinho’s team, but he was very honest about the fact that he isn’t back to his best quite yet.
“Naby is a maybe. Yesterday he was involved in the extended warm-up. No-one else (will be coming back). Naby has no rhythm, that’s the truth. That makes it difficult,” Klopp said.
“Nobody is in doubt about Naby’s qualities but when you are injured, you need to get a bit of luck and he didn’t have that luck. We try to be as careful as we can with him,” Klopp continued.
Liverpool’s midfield is depleted at the moment with Thiago Alcantara out injured and Fabinho being forced to play as a centre-half, so having Keita back would be a huge boost.
It doesn’t sound as though Keita is 100 per cent headed into this one, but if Klopp were to ever be tempted into taking a risk it would be in a game against table-topping Tottenham Hotspur.
This is undoubtedly one of the biggest games of Liverpool’s season and they’ll want to line up as strongly as possible, and in order to give themselves the best chance of winning, they may want to put Keita in the XI, even if he isn’t fit.
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