Liverpool are concerned about the fitness of Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo, and Luis Diaz, all of whom were injured in Sunday’s 4-3 defeat to Manchester United.
The Reds were knocked out of the FA Cup in the quarter-finals after a dramatic contest that lasted over 120 minutes at Old Trafford. Erik ten Hag’s side won it in extra time thanks to Amad Diallo’s goal, and they will face Coventry City in the semi-finals at Wembley Stadium next month.
Klopp went into the game missing nine first-team players: Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joel Matip, Ibrahima Konate, Curtis Jones, Diogo Jota, Thiago Alcantara, Stefan Bajcetic, and Ben Doak, and the trio of attackers may now be on the injured list following a bruising encounter with Erik ten Hag’s men.
Ryan Gravenberch was in the match-day squad for Sunday’s game, but he hasn’t played since the Carabao Cup final nearly a month ago, and Egypt granted the Reds special permission to keep Mohamed Salah on Merseyside for the international break following his own recent return from a hamstring injury.
Klopp revealed following Sunday’s game that Gakpo, Nunez, and Diaz all received injuries that will need to be closely watched ahead of the national games.
Klopp told BBC Sport: “Now that the boys are on international duty, they need to recover. We hope they return healthy. We had some issues. Lucho (Diaz) felt his groin, Darwin his hamstring; hoping it isn’t. I believe Cody has twisted his ankle. I didn’t receive it back, so we’ll have to see.
“I’m not sure when they play their first game, but it will definitely be in four or five days; it’s a crazy schedule. Let’s hoping they get through it and then the rest of the season begins.
“The more boys we have available, the better our chances are. to end the season in style. We’ll see. For the time being, we are out, and I truly feel for our people. We gave a good performance at times, but so did our team.
“I feel bad for them because they’ll have to listen to some Manchester United fans [gloat] for the next week or two. But we’ll come back in a few weeks and try again.”
Klopp continued, “How could I doubt the character of my boys?” I don’t, because what they’ve done this season is remarkable.
“I detest losing, but today we must take it. If we employed the situations, the game would be over, but we didn’t. They run through the open door. We don’t feel great right now, but I’m still proud.
“The boys offered all. Our decision-making was not always superb. We could have identified a better player for the counterattack, but we didn’t. However, we performed exceptionally well in several situations but did not capitalize on it.
“You must accept the result. They deserve to advance to the next round. There was a point in the second half when we should have finished but didn’t, and we knew they could come back. They had tremendous chances again, and we should not forget that. However, we had a scenario in the second half where we should have finished the game but did not.
“I believe my guys shown wonderful character again. Excellent work yet again. Everyone showed it. Our season cannot be compared to United’s in terms of number of games played. Especially recently, but that’s okay, we’ll cope with it. We may have won the game despite our timetable.
“I am still proud of what I witnessed today. They boys need to recover, and we’ll go for it after the international break. We needed to complete the game, but we didn’t, and that is the critique, the weak part.”
