Klopp happy with Fabinho progress

Jurgen Klopp is satisfied by Fabinho's progress at Liverpool despite not yet handing a debut to the Brazil midfielder.

Fabinho will join up with his international team-mates having been named as an unused substitute for the Reds' opening 4-0 Premier League win over West Ham and not featuring in any of the three matchday squads since.

Naby Keita has proved an instant hit in midfield since his arrival from RB Leipzig but Fabinho - a reported £39.3million signing from Monaco - is being granted a longer period of acclimatisation.

Klopp sees this as a positive and notes Liverpool's clean bill of health as a contributing factor, with the 24-year-old primed for action as the Premier League pacesetters brace themselves for a frantic September and October at home and abroad.

"Nothing [is wrong with Fabinho]. The team is good and he needs time," he told reporters.

"He could have been in the squad, of course, but it's quite difficult to make the squad at the moment because they are all fit.

"It's good to have the situation as one might need a bit of time, or the others are more used to it. That's the only reason.

"But he will come back. Now we have games every three days and he has made big steps in the last few weeks. He could even play at the moment."

 

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A post shared by Fabio Tavares (@fabinho) on Aug 17, 2018 at 12:04pm PDT

Title rivals Tottenham, Manchester City and Chelsea are all on the agenda, along with crunch Champions League group-stage games against Paris Saint-Germain and Napoli inside a 23-day period.

A fresh and firing Fabinho over this period will be a huge boost to Liverpool's cause, according to Klopp.

"Hopefully now Fabinho has games with Brazil, and then after he comes back we have games, games, games," the ex-Borussia Dortmund boss added.

"We have a lot of games in September, only against top teams. We need all of the players.

"We have come through the period where it looked like we didn't need all of them because we played quite a consistent line-up and the level in training was high.

"That's all cool. Hopefully they all come back healthy as we have to use them all because of the number of games."