Jurgen Klopp has said that Fabinho is taking “big steps” towards his Liverpool debut.
The Brazilian, who joined from AS Monaco in a £43.7m deal this summer, has yet to make a competitive appearance for Liverpool.
He has also made just one match-day squad so far this season, remaining unused for Liverpool’s opening-weekend win against West Ham.
But, according to Klopp, the midfielder is making significant progress and will likely be called upon when the demands of the footballing calendar are ramped up a notch after the international break.
“The team is good and he needs time,” Klopp said after the 2-1 win against Leicester.
“He could have been in the squad, of course, but it’s quite difficult to make the squad at the moment because they are all fit.
“It’s good to have the situation as one might need a bit of time, or the others are more used to it. That’s the only reason.
“But he will come back. And now we have games every three days, and he has made big steps in the last few weeks. He could even play at the moment.”
Fabinho has now joined up with the Brazil squad, alongside Reds teammates Alisson Becker and Roberto Firmino, for matches against United States and El Salvador.
“Hopefully now Fabinho has games with Brazil, and then after he comes back we have games, games, games,” added Klopp.
“We have the whole of September a lot of games, only against top teams. We need all of the players, that’s good.
“We have come through the period where it looked like we didn’t need all of them because we played quite a consistent line-up and the level in training was high. That’s all cool. Hopefully they all come back healthy as we have to use them all because of the number of games.”
