Norwich City v Liverpool: Team news
Jürgen Klopp has a near-full squad to select from when Liverpool kick off the Premier League season at Norwich City on Saturday.
The Reds will be without Curtis Jones (concussion) and Andy Robertson (ankle) for the 5.30pm BST opener at Carrow Road.
Thiago Alcantara and Jordan Henderson may also be held back as they continue to build up fitness following a later return to pre-season.
“They are all here, all our players are here in the moment and that means we have to make selections,” said Klopp at his pre-match press conference.
“Of course, Hendo and Thiago started late to train so their pre-season, if you want, started last week and they need it because we don’t prepare for one game, we prepare for a full season with a lot of games in the most intense league in the world.
“Apart from that, all the others trained at least two weeks. And some of them trained five weeks. So I have exactly the situation I want to have.
“I hope it stays like this, that so far we have no major injuries – apart from Robbo obviously, who is not available for the weekend. And Curtis, but he is fit again, it’s just a protocol and we will of course respect that.
“That’s it, that’s now the situation, a good situation but still I have to make some decisions.”
Summer signing Ibrahima Konate awaits his competitive debut for the club, while Joe Gomez’s next start will be his 100th for Liverpool in all competitions.
Speaking earlier in the week, Klopp was also optimistic about the availability of Gomez and Virgil van Dijk to begin the clash with the Canaries if called upon.
“I think so, it looks like,” he told Liverpoolfc.com. “But how it is with these kind of things, we have nothing to rush in this department.
“We just have to make then a decision on who will start, who will come on, things like this and if I think they are ready for 90 minutes then they are ready to start.
“If I think we have to take them off earlier then it makes no sense because centre-half is not actually a position where you want to change during a game and so we will see. But both look really good. An intense season is coming up. We will see how we decide that.”
The home side, meanwhile, will be without midfielder Przemyslaw Placheta and Norwich head coach Daniel Farke also confirmed Andrew Omobamidele (tonsillitis) is a doubt.
“It is a complicated task at the moment, without going into details with individual players,” said Farke. “We have these issues with key players who have missed a bit of pre-season because of injuries, COVID or returning back late from the Euros.
“So it is not how you would paint a picture for the first game of the season. We need to find a balance because we can’t go into the game without our key players, but also can’t go into this game using it as a pre-season game to give time to those key players who have missed minutes in pre-season.
“We will have to dig in and work our way into the season. The team selection for the first few games will be tricky.”