Darwin Nunez faces a race against time to be fit for Liverpool's trip to Brighton on Saturday, with the Uruguayan potentially becoming the fourth senior forward unavailable to Jurgen Klopp.
Nunez, who scored his 10th goal of the season in the FA Cup clash with Wolves last weekend, has missed much of training this week with a knock, and the Reds will wait to make a decision on his availability.
If he's absent, the former Benfica man will join forwards Diogo Jota, Luis Diaz and Roberto Firmino on the sidelines, with Klopp confirming that the Brazilian had suffered a setback in his own recovery.
"We are waiting for information. Not a major one (injury) but it kept him (Nunez) out of training, so we'll wait for that," said Klopp on Friday.
"(James) Milner trained yesterday, back in normal training today. Firmino not. (Stefan) Bajcetic is back today."
Should Nunez be unavailable then he could take the list of missing senior players to six, joining Firmino, Jota, Diaz, Virgil van Dijk and Arthur Melo.
On Firmino, Klopp said: "It was a little injury, where they estimated 10 days to two weeks.
"Then Bobby felt something again, so it will obviously be longer. I don't know exactly when he will be back, but he is not close to team training."
On Saturday's opponents he added: "Brighton deserve respect. I don't think anyone underestimates them anymore but who would have thought their possession stats would increase after Graham Potter [left].
"We have the chance to go there and cause real problems."
Meanwhile, former Manchester United defender Patrice Evra feels that it is just a matter of time before Nunez is regarded in the same bracket as Manchester City's Erling Haaland, adding that "people will be scared" of Uruguayan.
Speaking to Betfair, Evra said: "All of a sudden, Liverpool has this constant talk of negativity around Darwin Nunez, people saying he's not great and he should do this and that, we don't talk about Liverpool.
"If you look, people talk more about Nunez and when you have this, it's always going to affect the team. You've got to give the lad a break. It's his first season, talk about somebody else.
"What potential he has. When you look at him and how he plays, at his age there aren't many other strikers that are that clever. The movement he is doing, nobody can teach you that.
"He will do something incredible but he will miss the goal, I feel sad for him but trust me, the day this kid will understand everything about the Premier League and how to be clinical, people will be scared.
"We talk a lot about Haaland, Nunez can get to that level, he's just unfortunate at the moment, but when his luck changes what a player he is going to be."
