Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that Roberto Firmino is close to full fitness ahead of Liverpool's FA Cup final with Chelsea. The Reds travel to Aston Villa on Tuesday night, just under four days before taking on the Blues at Wembley.
Firmino has not played for Liverpool since their FA Cup semi-final victory over Manchester City in the middle of last month due to a foot injury. There was some hope that the Brazil international would be involved in the 1-1 draw with Tottenham at the weekend, but he remained sidelined.
However, ahead of Liverpool's trip to the Midlands to take on Aston Villa on Tuesday night, Klopp has revealed that Firmino could be involved at Villa Park. "Bobby Firmino has trained, so it is a decision for tomorrow," the Liverpool boss said. "He is getting closer and closer and closer, and hopefully, he can be involved."
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Chelsea also plays before Saturday's showdown at Wembley, with the Blues travelling to Leeds United on Wednesday evening. A positive result is massively needed for Thomas Tuchel and his side to avoid a last-gasp fight for a top-four spot.
With Arsenal beating Leeds on Sunday afternoon, the Gunners are now just one point below Chelsea, with Tottenham five adrift of the Blues ahead of the final three games of the season. Tuchel has been asked plenty about the top four race in recent weeks, and speaking ahead of Chelsea's 2-2 draw with Wolves last week, the German head coach was not too interested in going into detail about the battle.
He said: "It is not of interest, how I call it. I can understand that you assess it all of the time. We would rather not be in your assessment, but we are, and it is our responsibility, and that's why we need another reaction.
"That's where we are. We had a week to prepare which was nice, but not nice because we would prefer to play the Champions League. It was nice to have the team to have influence in training, to set the focus on the things we want to improve.
"We want to meet our standards, and we demand a lot from us. I think there are a lot of reasons why it is maybe normal to drop in intensity and in the level of effort but as we are an elite sports team, we compete on the very highest level of this sport.
"There is not much room for normal behaviour. We want elite behaviour. This includes me. We need to step up, show another reaction and that we can play better, have more impact and effort in the matches and start from there tomorrow."
