Henderson, Oxlade-Chamberlain should return after international break

Jurgen Klopp has confirmed Jordan Henderson will miss Sunday's trip to Fulham but expects the Liverpool midfielder to return after the international break - along with long-term absentee Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

Club captain Henderson was forced off in the early stages of Wednesday's 3-1 Champions League win over Bayern Munich, with Klopp confirming after the game the midfielder suffered a twisted his ankle. The England international will not recover in time for this weekend's game at Craven Cottage, with Liverpool not in action again until they host Tottenham at the end of the month.

Oxlade-Chamberlain could also be available for the Spurs fixture at Anfield on March 31, the former Arsenal player nearing a first-team comeback after nearly a year out with a serious knee injury.

"Hendo's injury is serious enough to rule him out of the weekend. The international break will be long enough hopefully to bring him back," Klopp told the media. "It's a little one with the ankle, how it looked in the first place. It [the scan result] was the best we could get, I would say but still not good enough. Not good, but okay. "Naby [Keita] - we have to see if he can train today. The boys come in a bit later and we will make a couple of checks. It was positive, and we will see if it stays positive when he goes outside.

"Oxlade, I heard nothing new. There's no rush for the weekend or in general, so for sure after the international break he will be 100 per cent fit."

March 15, 2019

The Reds will still be without Joe Gomez for the game with Fulham, though the injury issues at centre-back have eased after Dejan Lovren was back on the bench away at Bayern. In the absence of both Gomez and Lovren in recent weeks, Klopp has been impressed with how Joel Matip has stepped in to play alongside Virgil van Dijk.

"I am not sure if he doesn't get the praise, but from my side he cannot get more. He’s an outstanding player, it is unbelievable how he did," Klopp said of Matip. "We were really unlucky with centre-backs, so many injuries are rare but hopefully they are now finished. But when the players played, they all did well. Joe Gomez played the first part of the season and was incredible, Dejan played unbelievably good football and Joel as well. One of the best games I thought from him was the game against Naples, when he got injured in the last seconds of the game.

"We had a little bit of consistency in that position with the pairing. Virgil, thank God, could play most of the time and always had to adapt to the other one. They do a brilliant job, both of them."