Jurgen Klopp has allayed any injury concerns over Liverpool’s summer signing Ryan Gravenberch.
The Dutch international midfielder, a £34.2million deadline day arrival from Bayern Munich, had only appeared as a late substitute in the Premier League win over Wolves before being handed his first Reds start in Wednesday night’s Europa League opener against LASK in Austria.
It was an accomplished full debut from Gravenberch, who impressed for a much-changed team and provided a quality assist for Luis Diaz’s goal shortly after the hour mark at Raiffeisen Arena in Linz.
However, there were fitness fears after the 21-year-old was forced off and replaced by Mohamed Salah with 15 minutes remaining in the Group E contest, which Liverpool came from behind to win 3-1 - Klopp’s record 50th European victory as boss - with Darwin Nunez and Salah also on the scoresheet after Florian Flecker’s stylish early opener for the hosts.
Klopp has since played down those worries ahead of Liverpool returning to top-flight action against West Ham at Anfield on Sunday, another game which Thiago Alcantara (hip) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (hamstring) will be expected to miss.
“He [Gravenberch] told me he had a cramp,” he told TNT Sports after the win over LASK. “I think that makes sense absolutely, it was his first start for a long while I think.”
Klopp was effusive in his praise of Gravenberch’s performance on his first Liverpool start, with more room for improvement to come in the weeks ahead.
“He did really well, for a long time he was the best player on the pitch for sure,” the German added. “In the first half frustration grew a little bit and you saw him getting lost as well a little bit.
“That’s normal, these things happen. But he stayed in the game as long as he could and had some really good moments, set up the goal for Lucho [Diaz]. For not knowing a lot about his team-mates, it looked pretty in tune.”
