Jürgen Klopp discusses Van Dijk's Euros availability
Jürgen Klopp has discussed Virgil van Dijk's potential availability for this summer's European Championships.
The centre-half has been sidelined since October 17 with a knee injury that required surgery.
While continuing to make encouraging progress with his recovery, the Netherlands international is yet to return to full training with Liverpool.
Asked who will make the decision on whether Van Dijk can feature at the Euros, Klopp told reporters: "Virgil's knee. Look, I don't want to hold him back, but you cannot force it as well.
"Now let's just go through all these kind of things. You are all long enough in the business to know if you want to play a tournament, you have to train before – proper football training weeks before, not a week before.
"You cannot after 10, 11 months out, train a week and play football. That's just not possible, it should not be possible.
"Nobody holds him back, I can promise all the people in Holland or wherever. But we cannot force it as well and we will not. We speak about a player and his career.
"Nobody should force that and nobody will – not Holland, not us, and [not] Virgil as well. He just tries to get fit as quick as possible.
"In the moment, nobody knows when that will be exactly but you can imagine it will be for sure very, very tight with the Euros and the team training and stuff like this because he is not in team training yet and will not be in the next weeks. So, I don't know.
"But in the end it's a decision of Virgil and he will get massively influenced by the feeling in his knee."