Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp hints Virgil van Dijk will miss Man City clash after World Cup exploits
LIVERPOOL manager Jurgen Klopp has hinted that Virgil van Dijk may not play against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup.
Last season’s top two meet on December 22 for both teams’ first competitive match back after the World Cup break.
But Klopp has revealed that he could be without a number of key players for the last-16 clash.
The German suggested Van Dijk, Jordan Henderson and Trent Alexander-Arnold may not feature due to their exploits in Qatar.
On the trio playing in the game, Klopp said: “Yeah, there’s a chance, of course – they’ve trained already.
“Hendo [Henderson] is already training here. Virg [Van Dijk] is training here, but I don’t think we will try that.
“Hendo, we will see, Trent [Alexander-Arnold] we will see.
“But this group [has] worked now together for nearly two weeks and we made a real step and that’s cool. I don’t know at this moment.
“I hope we all get through it and we all know in England, and in Europe in general, there’s kind of a virus going around, so we hope we can stay out of that.
“Then we will make the decision obviously on Wednesday who can play on Thursday. It will be a very interesting game after that period [World Cup] but I’m looking forward to it.”
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Van Dijk played every minute of action for the Netherlands as they were knocked out at the quarter-final stage by Argentina.
As for Henderson, he played four times for England and Alexander-Arnold featured for just 33 minutes in Qatar.
Liverpool started a number of youngsters in the previous round as they overcame Derby 3-2 on penalties after the match finished goalless.
In the defence, Nat Phillips and Joe Gomez started against the Rams.
They could be needed again as Ibrahima Konate is potentially starting in the World Cup final for France just days before the match versus City.