Klopp reveals (lack of) Liverpool plan for Haaland as Guardiola gives injury update

Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool haven’t done much to prepare to face Erling Haaland on Saturday with the Manchester City star’s fitness is still in question.

Haaland suffered a groin injury before the international break and was forced to pull out of Norway’s squad for Euro 2024 qualifiers against Spain and Georgia.

He visited a hospital in Barcelona to aid his recovery ahead of a crunch period for Manchester City.

Liverpool face a similarly make-or-break spell in their season with Chelsea and Arsenal to come in quick succession after their trip to the Etihad.

Klopp said it was “like a Champions League week” but claimed his side haven’t spent too much time or energy on Haaland.

He said: “Not too much. When you prepare a game, you prepare all things to avoid the final pass – which is where Erling really comes into the game. He is a proper striker, but they became champions without a striker. That’s how it is, you never know 100 per cent who can play.”

Pep Guardiola was asked to provide an update on Haaland in his press conference and didn’t give much away.

He said: “Erling [Haaland] is in recovery, we will see how he feels after the training session.”

“We will see today and at the end the doctor and especially the player will decide. We will see, we will see what happens.”

But Guardiola isn’t sweating Haaland’s fitness too much, and namechecked Argentina international Julian Alvarez as he explained that “everyone has to be involved” given the number of games in the schedule.

“The football is the quality of the players… Haaland has his skills, Julian has his own skills. It depends, most of the players came back yesterday, we could not do much, today a little bit. Today is the last assessment.

“All the season we had mainly all the squad available, but at times you have periods with a lot of injuries. With this amount of games, with just 11 or 12 players it does not happen, everyone has to be involved.”

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