Liverpool Team News: Klopp Confirms Double Fitness Blow Ahead Of Stoke Clash

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp has given a team news and injury update ahead of the Reds Capital One Cup semi-final first leg clash at Stoke City tomorrow night.

The German coach confirmed a double injury blow with both Jordan Henderson and Daniel Sturridge ruled out of the trip to the Britannia Stadium on Tuesday.

Henderson was forced off during the 1-0 victory over Sunderland last week after suffering a recurrence of a niggling heel injury that’s plagued him in recent months.

The skipper subsequently missed Saturday’s 2-0 defeat to West Ham at Upton Park and now Klopp has confirmed that Henderson will once again miss out against Stoke and the club will have to wait and see how long the midfielder will be on the sidelines for.

In a double blow, Sturridge is also not deemed fit enough to return just yet as he continues to work on his fitness following a hamstring injury. The striker has been undergoing an individual training regime in recent weeks but Klopp says they must be cautious not to rush him back too soon.

The Reds boss told Liverpoolfc.com:

“We don’t really know [about Henderson] because we have to wait each day, each hour, each minute,”

“The thing that happened with the tendon in the foot, it’s good. It’s painful but it’s good.

“We hope that when the blood is out of the foot then the situation is solved but in this moment there is blood around the heel so it’s not possible to train or to play.

“We hope it’s not serious and we don’t have to wait because we cannot do more. He’s having treatment and, everything we can do to bring the blood out of the foot, we are doing. But we cannot rush more, it’s time we need.”

“Maybe you have the feeling that we trained now for three weeks with Daniel and say every day, ‘more, more, more, more’, and every day he’s fitter and fitter and in the end I say, ‘no, I wait’.

“It’s not like this. Daniel had some problems in these weeks, not serious, but then he could not make the next session and we had to wait a day or something like this.

“[It’s] how a pre-season can be. It’s a pre-season without games so it should not happen too much but some little things happened, we always have to handle this.

“It’s not a row of sessions and now we are here. I’m the first who will pick him when he’s available, when he’s ready for this, I will never hold him back.

“In this moment because he didn’t have one session with the team, which was the usual plan for this week, he’s not available.

“What we are trying to do now is to fill his body with energy and strength and everything, that’s what we have to do.

“It would be easy for me to say, ‘come on, let’s try, we have problems, we don’t score enough goals, bring him and let’s see what happens’, but that’s where we have to be patient. We have to wait.”

Liverpool head to the Britannia Stadium following a disappointing loss at West Ham which left them sitting eighth in the Premier League table and dented their hopes of finishing in the top four.

However, it’s time for the Merseysiders to turn their attention to the domestic cups and Klopp will be desperate to put one foot in the final at Wembley by securing a positive first leg result tomorrow night.