Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that Philippe Coutinho will not be involved when Liverpool travel to the Etihad Stadium on Saturday (9 September) to take on Manchester City when the Premier League season resumes after the international break.
The Reds midfielder missed the club’s opening three games of the season with a back injury, which was further compounded by a bout of illness.
But Coutinho showed that he was back to full fitness when he came off the bench to play for Brazil in their games against Ecuador and Colombia during the recent international break.
Despite returning to training with the Liverpool first-team for the first time since the season started on Thursday (7 September), Klopp is not willing to hasten his return to the matchday squad.
“It’s a little bit different [Coutinho and Firmino’s situation],” Klopp said, as quoted on Liverpool’s official site. “Roberto played in the second game a little bit longer, but both are fit so that’s cool, they’re healthy so now we have to see.”
“It’s, of course, different because of Phil, I know what people think, but Phil had the back problem a few weeks ago and couldn’t train so that means he missed around about three weeks.
“Yes, he went to the national team and trained normally, but now we have to prepare for a normal season so we have seven games [before the next international break] and we saw training this morning and thought ‘OK, maybe we should use him immediately’ because he was really good, but that doesn’t make sense,” the former Borussia Dortmund coach explained.
“We have now to continue with the pre-season, not too long, but in a few sessions we have to give ourselves the time because in the next month we have seven games.”