Liverpool is likely to be without summer signing Thiago for their next two games, said coach Jurgen Klopp, but he should be back in time for the Merseyside derby.
Having missed training over the weekend, the Spanish midfielder was not included in the Reds’ Premier League battle with Arsenal on Monday evening.
“He’ll be better after the international break, for sure,” Klopp told Sky Sports.
“At the moment, it is the case. He wasn’t fit enough to be involved against Arsenal, so that’s it.”
A last-gasp penalty awarded over the weekend against Tottenham’s Eric Dier sparked even more controversy, but Klopp insists that coaches may do little more than adhere to the rules.
“If Jose Mourinho had told him before the game: ‘When Carroll is in your back, make sure your arm is nowhere near the ball,’ would you think Eric Dier should have done something different? Stuff like that doesn’t work. We’ve just got to live with this situation.”
“It was totally terrible for Eric, for sure. I mean, everyone does, and he can’t do anything else!”
“It’s still like that in the end. We have the rules to deal with, the refs have the rules to deal with. We just have to live with it, as long as the rules are the way they are.”
