Liverpool boss Arne Slot delivered an injury update on Alexander Isak, Mo Salah, Alisson Becker and Giorgi Mamardashvili and more ahead of this weekend’s meeting with Chelsea.
The Reds entertain the Blues at Anfield in the Premier League this Saturday as they look to seal qualification for next season’s UEFA Champions League.
The Merseyside outfit are dealing with a number of absences, with up to nine players potentially missing the Chelsea game.
Liverpool injury news as Slot issues update ahead of Chelsea
Isak, though, may feature after training for the first time since sustaining a leg injury that ruled him out of last week’s defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Salah and Alisson won’t face Chelsea, but the pair are “very close” to a return to training. Mamardashvili, who has been sidelined by a knee injury, is back in training and could start.
“Alex has trained with us again, only for the first time, yesterday,” Slot said in his pre-match press conference. “So that is a positive, yesterday he did parts of [training]. Hopefully he can do parts or all of it today. Then we will see how much we can use him tomorrow.
“Alisson not yet, hasn’t trained with us yet but very close. Mamardashvili will train with us today for the first time, so let’s see how he is going to react.
“Mo also hasn’t trained with us yet but is also getting very, very close to train with us.”
Meanwhile, Ibrahima Konate missed training on Wednesday due to a personal matter, as did Florian Wirtz due to illness, but both men have returned to training and should be available for selection.
“Ibou had a personal reason not to be there [at training on Wednesday] but was yesterday and today again and Florian was a bit unwell but he trained with us yesterday also.”
Slot also gave a rare update on Conor Bradley, who has been out with a serious knee injury since January. The Dutchman said he could not put a timeframe on his return to action as the right-back is still a long way from being able to train again.
“In the rehab it’s always important if certain steps go well or they don’t go well,” he added. “It’s really difficult in the stage where he is in now to predict when he will be back. He’s still inside and working really hard to make the right steps but he is quite far away from going outside, that makes it quite complicated to tell how long it is going to take.”
