Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has confirmed forward Darwin Nunez will face a late fitness test ahead of Sunday’s huge meeting with Arsenal.
The Uruguay international, who has three goals and two assists in his last four Premier League games, has helped make up for the absence of star winger Mohamed Salah, who picked up a hamstring injury at the Africa Cup of Nations which will keep him sidelined for several weeks.
Nunez was at his chaotic best against Chelsea in midweek, hitting the post no fewer than four times, and Klopp has now revealed Nunez was playing through an injury which has given medical staff a real scare.
“A little side story you don’t know, I don’t know if Darwin will be available or not because after 20 minutes, someone stepped on his foot,” Klopp confessed. “Very painful after the game.
“He only took the boot the game off after the game because he didn’t want to see it before. He knew there was something.
“He left the stadium in a boot and it was not a football boot. Nothing broken, x-ray clear but swollen. We have to see if he can get his foot back in a football boot or not. That takes time. I didn’t see him this morning so we have to wait a little bit.”
Should Nunez fail to recover in time for the game, Klopp would likely restore Cody Gakpo to the starting lineup alongside Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota, both of whom netted in the resounding 4-1 win over Chelsea.
Jota has attracted particular praise in recent weeks and Klopp admitted the 27-year-old has all the tools needed to shine in the Premier League.
“He just has it,” the boss said. “He is a complete package, and he knows that and everyone knows that. He got a few injuries at the wrong time and if you get too many as well, he is unlucky and Diogo gets in each game knocks like crazy.
“If I go through the medical reports since Diogo is here and he is always there and not as ‘injured’ but just has a bruise, has a knock and he really gets it and on top of that a couple of times and he is out for too long or his numbers would look different.
“He was in really good shape before he got injured, came back and is in a really good shape, he is literally flying. Everything looks light, he is fresh, and looks explosive.
“On top of that he always is an extremely smart footballer. If the world looks to a country where it is not big but has a lot of extremely smart footballers it is Portugal. The amount of footballers they have delivered to the football world compared to the amount of people is crazy. And the kind of players, too. Really special.”
