Jurgen Klopp is optimistic that Roberto Firmino will be available to play against Barcelona next week despite the striker missing Liverpool’s win over Huddersfield Town.
Firmino was not risked for the 5-0 win over Jan Siewert’s relegated side after suffering a minor groin injury in training.
The Brazil international must now recover in order to play a part in Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first legat the Camp Nou.
Klopp did not feel Firmino could be included in his matchday squad on Friday night but is confident that the problem is not serious.
“Bobby trained [on Thursday] completely normal,” said Klopp. “It was not high intensity. We had to work on set-pieces a little bit and a couple of things.
“I didn’t see [the injury] in training. It happened after the last situation in training, he felt a muscle a little bit.
“The official diagnosis is that he has a small tear in a very small muscle. Apart from the word ‘tear’ everything is positive.
“It’s Bobby, so he might be ready for Wednesday but we don’t know obviously at the moment. But because it’s him, it’s rather likely than not. We will see.
“Of all the bad news we could get, it’s probably the best. But it’s still bad enough that he couldn’t play tonight.”
Virgil van Dijk, Liverpool’s influential centre-half, appeared to hurt his foot during the second half of Friday night’s win but played on and Klopp later said the Dutchman was “all good”.
The victory saw Liverpool return to the summit of the Premier League table with 91 points. Title rivals Manchester City will have a chance to move back on top at Burnley on Sunday.
