Liverpool forward Sadio Mane has taken a big step in his recovery from injury after coming through a ‘clearing’ session to return to first-team training.
The Senegal player hasn’t played for Liverpool since the first day of the month after picking up a hamstring injury on international duty.
Klopp said he’s nearing a return – although Mane won’t play before the upcoming international break. Neither will Adam Lallana, who is yet to feature this season, but the England international is also stepping up his fitness.
‘Both are looking good,’ said Klopp ahead of Liverpool’s Champions League game with Maribor on Wednesday. ‘Sadio had a clearing session before he comes back to training and that was good as I understand. He now has a down day and on Thursday he should be in training.’
He continued: ‘Adam will be part of team training during the international break.
‘Both are in a good way but not good enough to involve them tomorrow or at the weekend.’
Liverpool 2017/18 Fixtures
Brighton (H) - Sun May 13
Real Madrid (N) - Champions League -Sat May 26
There are fitness concerns surrounding Dejan Lovren and Philippe Coutinho ahead of tomorrow’s game at Anfield, with neither playing at the weekend, but both could feature on Wednesday.
‘Both are much better but if they will be okay for tomorrow night I don’t know in this moment,’ said Klopp.
‘We will have to see. In this moment I hope for both to be involved in training session at 5pm.
‘If they don’t train, in Dejan’s case, it won’t mean immediate he can’t play.’
On Coutinho he added: ‘To be honest, it doesn’t look like, but yesterday he was on the pitch running. Everything looks good, but not sure. We’ll see.
‘We didn’t speak about him today so far, it’s quite early and there are still a few hours until we train tonight and a few hours until the game. If he is ready, he is playing. If not, not.’
Klopp added that Joe Gomez ‘felt a little bit’ following the 3-0 win over Huddersfield on Saturday and Roberto Firmino had cramp after that game so he had to be ‘careful’.
Whoever is fit, Klopp is ready to pick them without any thought of resting them for the weekend trip to West Ham. But if players aren’t 100%, he won’t involve them
‘I never take risks with line-ups. If a player is playing they are at 100%. If you feel a bruise or whatever that’s not a problem. But when muscles are involvers I never take risks,
‘I don’t think about rotations, I think about having the best team for tomorrow night.’
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