Jurgen Klopp is confident Liverpool can find a way to cope without Mohamed Salah as he hinted at naming a strong team for Sunday’s FA Cup clash against Arsenal.
Liverpool will have to contend without Salah for potentially over a month as he is playing for Egypt at the Africa Cup of Nations. Salah has been in brilliant form this season and is joint-top of the Premier League Golden Boot race after scoring 14 times.
The Reds must also deal without midfielder Wataru Endo, their player of the month for December, as he is playing for Japan at the Asian Cup, while influential midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai is out with a hamstring injury.
“I am not sure if Arsenal now is a game to rotate,” he said. “I sit here, I don’t know 100 per cent if we have the opportunity to do so, to be honest, whatever it means. It’s not that we have the biggest squad available. We have players available and we can line the team up 100 per cent, a good team, and I think that’s what we will do.
“If that then looks afterwards like rotation, I don’t know yet because we have six days between the games. So that’s long, there is no need for rotation. You can say: ‘Three days later we have another game’. That’s true, but we can think about that game when the other game is over.
“That’s what we do usually and both have the same importance. There is nothing in between. We want to win these games, we want to go to the final, we want to go to the next round, but it’s probably about as tricky draw as you can get.
“It will be a tough one, but the game here was a good one and let’s hope we can show a good performance there as well.”
Szoboszali was forced off during the 4-2 win over Newcastle on New Year's Day and will take no part against the Gunners or against Fulham in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final. Both player and manager are hopeful the knock will not keep the summer signing sidelined for long.
“I can confirm it’s not a potential injury – it is an injury. Muscle, hamstring. But now we have to see,” Klopp said. “Dom is very positive, doesn’t have a lot of pain but we have to wait a little bit. So, no chance obviously for Sunday, not for Wednesday. No.
“And then we will see, after that hopefully he might be back but we don’t know ... Besides that, nothing else really happened. The rest were yesterday available and fully fit, so let’s hope that’s today the same and we will have to make a choice.”
Klopp this week bid farewell to both Salah and Endo, and joked that he hopes both Egypt and Japan underwhelm during the tournament so the pair return quicker than expected.
“I said: ‘If I wish you good luck that would be a lie!’ No, I do obviously [wish them luck],” said Klopp, when asked for his parting message to Endo and Salah. But, from a personal point of view, I would be overly happy if they went out at the group stage, but it’s probably not possible.
“It’s fine, then they can go and win it as well. Good luck, see you and come back healthy, that’s pretty much the words. Now we have to deal with it and we will deal with it. I am pretty positive, but we have to show that obviously on the pitch.“I think we played against West Ham without Mo on that side when Harvey [Elliott] played there. We all know we have different offensive options who can play that wing in a different way.
“Nobody else who plays that wing should play like Mo, it’s not possible. So we just have to find another way and use the boys to their skills. That’s exactly the idea behind [it].
“Do you want to play without Mo? No, but if you have to then…in the past we didn’t have to do that often, but I think we always find a way to get through these periods.
“I am pretty sure we will, but of course we play Arsenal. At Arsenal you can lose with Mo Salah, so it is possible as well you lose without him. But, in the moment, we have a chance to win a game so I think we should more think about that.”
