Naby Keita out of Southampton game with hip injury

Liverpool will again be without the injured Naby Keita when they visit Southampton in the Premier League on Saturday.

Guinea international Keita has not recovered in time from a hip muscle strain suffered before the UEFA Super Cup victory over Chelsea. The midfielder was an unused substitute during last Friday's league win against Norwich City at Anfield and manager Jurgen Klopp confirmed there is no timescale for his return.

"[He's] not available. It's a muscle thing," Klopp said when asked about the 24-year-old at his pre-match news conference. "We don't know exactly how long it will take, but he's not available."

Keita is not Liverpool's only fitness concern, with goalkeeper Adrian potentially set to join Alisson on the sidelines. The Spaniard was left nursing a swollen ankle after a fan slipped and collided with him amid the on-pitch celebrations in Istanbul on Wednesday.

 

August 14, 2019

Klopp will have to carefully assess his troops ahead of a third game in eight days, a schedule that does not sit comfortably with the German.

"My plan when I heard about the fixtures was to win on Wednesday, to win on Saturday, then speak about it after that," he said. "If you speak about it earlier it sounds like you're looking for excuses. I don't, we don't [want to make excuses]. Was it right that we played on Friday and Chelsea on Sunday? No. That's the situation, we cannot change these things. We have no power. We can only accept it. Now we don't think about it, we don't think about Wednesday night, we think about Saturday.

"That's what we have to do - find a way to win the game. That's the reason why we go there and that's possible, so that's what we will try."