Jurgen Klopp has confirmed Naby Keita won't be involved for Liverpool against Nottingham Forest on Saturday despite being involved in training earlier this week.
The Guinean hasn't featured for the Reds since making a late substitute appearance in the Community Shield against Man City back in July because of illness and injury. He is set to return to full team training on Monday, however, though Klopp insists he will be patience and with the 27-year-old and still has no desire to rush the midfielder back into action before he is ready.
"Yes (tomorrow is too soon). We can't rush it anyway," the German told reporters. "It was a tough injury, a serious injury. He's now back but only in parts of training.
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"From Monday on, Naby and Ibou, if everything goes as planned, will be involved in full team training. That means from there we count days. His football pre-season starts then.
"He was out for a while, like Ox was. Ox was on the bench but I don't think he was ready to play the last game but he's getting close though. He's one or two weeks ahead of Naby which is very helpful for us as well.
"It's now about making it possible so he can sustain an awful lot of games coming up. There are a lot of football games to play and I can't wait to have him back properly."
He continued: "(He'll be back) Before (the World Cup). It's not a pre-season like five or six weeks. What we can do in rehab with these tough muscle injuries, they do everything apart from team training. You cannot replace team training.
"They do football work, they run more than we do in training sessions because they have to. But nothing in rehab can replace a football session. It's a completely different intensity to everything you can produce in rehab.
"The football part of the pre-season starts now. Physically, he could probably run a marathon when he starts on Monday but that isn't helpful because he needs to do other movements.
"As long as we can give the boys time to recover fully and get as fit as possible, we always try to do that. The problem is when you start with injuries in the season, the boys who come back very often have to play too early because there are no other options.
"In this case, I hope not. I hope we can do that and give him time until he can play. But maybe next week I tell you Naby Keita starts. I don't know, we will see."
Meanwhile, Klopp confirmed Liverpool had no new injuries to report ahead of facing Nottingham Forest though hinted he will again have to make changes due to the Reds' intense run of fixtures, with Darwin Nunez one of the players he will have to make late checks on.
"We have to check (Darwin), he said. "He had treatment yesterday and we will see what we get told later. No injuries, no comebacks.
"No injuries but two tough games in short succession and now another coming up. We need to have a closer look at who we can start again, or who can come in to start. It's really close.
"We only have this session this afternoon. Yesterday was recovery for the boys who played the other night. Today will be the only session we have. I will get further information later today and we will see."
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