Jurgen Klopp has expressed his frustration at the unavailability of certain Liverpool players throughout the season as he continues to grapple with a succession of injury problems.
And the Reds boss believes the long-standing fitness concerns are the root cause of his team's sluggish Premier League campaign so far ahead of their visit to Ajax on Wednesday night in Group A of the Champions League.
Klopp heads to the Johan Cruyff ArenA without Thiago Alcantara, Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz and Joel Matip, while Ibrahima Konate is unlikely to play a major role in the game having only returned to full training on Monday.
Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are both fit again but will play no part in Wednesday's game in Amsterdam having been left out of the Champions League squad after their respective injuries over the summer.
Klopp did at least suggest Darwin Nunez is in line for a return to the side, however, as he opened up on the injury problems that have seen 19 different players miss at least one match this term.
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"Darwin is good," Klopp said. "He trained normally, yesterday and today, so yes, at this moment he is available. Thiago is still out. Konate is here, ready to play minutes I would say. He could play the first minutes but that doesn’t make too much sense. But minutes, yes. Nothing new yet. Matip is still not ready.
"For ‘clicking’ you need consistency in the line-up as well, and at the moment we cannot do that. Not at all. Could we sort problems, bigger, smaller? It starts with injuries, but then the players who have no injuries have to play too often and the players who come back from injuries have to play too early.
"And they come back and play, and they have another ‘thing’, and the medical department tells you they cannot play more than 20 minutes, they shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t do that, these kinds of things. And then you’ve got a Premier League game against a team with a knife in their teeth! That’s tricky.
"That situation is not sorted overnight. Yes players are coming back, but you ask me if Ibou is ready to play. He trained properly yesterday. He was not out long, but he had a muscle thing, so does it make sense to put him straight in for 95 minutes? Same with Naby, he needs to train. Oxlade-Chamberlain, needs to train.
"They are both not in the Champions League squad because everybody told me they would be out for longer, but now they are back, which is good, but not back to play, just to be around and play a few minutes."
Klopp added: "But Curtis Jones is back, a few others are back which is helpful. No complaints, no moans, it’s just the situation. The situation before Nottingham was really strange, that you have to play a player who didn’t play for a long time with Curtis Jones, and he did really well, in a position he never played, because in the night something happens.
"That is difficult, and on top of that a lot of players didn’t play their best football in a game without any real patterns on the pitch, which is rare. Usually you have a few patterns, in this game we didn’t have a lot, against a deep-defending side which is not easy. I’m looking forward to the game tomorrow, I’m really positive, it’s the Champions League, Ajax, big names, big game, all good.
"We have a lot of players here so we will give it a try. We played really well a couple of times, but we didn’t get through those games without problems. We play a good game and then two players are out after it, and another is not available for longer than 20 minutes! Wow. That’s not easy with the squad we have.
"It’s not too small, just too many injuries. Now, we have enough players here, good news for all who are with us, and hopefully tomorrow that is still the case."
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