Fabinho revealed that he felt muscular discomfort ahead of matches against Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United last week and it was subsequently decided that he should not feature. The midfielder also missed the Brighton defeat and his availability for Sunday is not yet known.
Fabinho said: “I had a slight discomfort in training so we decided that I shouldn’t play against Tottenham or West Ham. But I started undergoing my recovery straightaway and I’m feeling a lot better than I was at the start of last week and hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to come back for these games we have coming up. We’re not exactly sure how long I will be out but I’m working hard to be back playing as soon as possible.”
The midfielder, though, is keen to stress that Liverpool have the opportunity to quickly break out of their current funk.
Fabinho added: “We know the quality of this team. “Of course, we have had a few players out this season with injuries and coronavirus, but we know that we have the quality to be in a better position in the league table. The confidence will come back for sure and we just have to keep working hard because the quality is there. Sometimes you have difficult times in football and you just have to be together, work hard and do everything you can to win because you know the results can turn around just as quickly.”
Klopp admitted that his team should not be interested in challenging for the Premier League title right now after their latest defeat to Brighton. Liverpool have failed to score in almost six hours of action at Anfield and have won just two of their last eight league matches. And Klopp says that his team must simply focus on improving their performances in the short term before they can even consider challenging for the title.
Jurgen Klopp said”I’m the manager of Liverpool and you always ask – as we were champions last year – and I have to say ‘oh my God, we want to be champions, yes we want it’ But you need the games for it and you need the performances for it. And we don’t have them. That’s the truth as well. We have to fight for other things. We fight for three points. It’s not decided yet who will get the three points on Sunday. We have to play better and we will try to as well. Then we will see.”
On the poor recent results and the gap they have created, Klopp added: “These gaps are not interesting at the moment because they are the result of the results we have had already. All we can influence now are the next games, and that’s what we will try to do. Tonight, it wasn’t enough. We saw that and know that. We have to change that.”