Jurgen Klopp has admitted that he could be facing a serious defensive selection headache for the upcoming Champions League meeting with Bayern Munich with Dejan Lovren not involved in this week's training camp in Spain.
The Croatian has not appeared for Liverpool since sustaining a hamstring injury in the first five minutes of last month's FA Cup third-round defeat to Wolves at Molineux.
He returned to the bench for the visit of Leicester to Anfield just over three weeks later, but has not been seen since having suffered a recurrence of the problem in training.
It was hoped that the 10-day break between the weekend win over Bournemouth and Bayern's arrival on Merseyside would prove sufficient for Lovren to stake a claim for inclusion.
However, speaking to the club's official website, Klopp provided a pessimistic update, saying: “Dejan is not here and Joe [Gomez] is not here.
“That’s never a good sign, I would say, but we will try everything to make Dejan available for Munich. It will be a tight race.
“For him, it makes sense in the moment to be in another place to do what he has to do. It wouldn’t have helped if he was here, so we will try everything – that’s clear.”
With Joe Gomez still recovering from a broken leg and Virgil van Dijk suspended for the first leg of the tie, Lovren was expected to start alongside Joel Matip next Tuesday.
That looks increasingly unlikely, though, leaving Klopp considering the possibility of once again deploying Fabinho as a makeshift centre-back.
