Football
Glenn Price, Liverpool correspondent 5y

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp reveals Mohamed Salah battling wrist injury

LIVERPOOL, England -- Jurgen Klopp has revealed Mohamed Salah has been battling a wrist injury, but is expected to be fit for Liverpool's trip to Arsenal on Saturday.

Salah was spotted in training this week wearing a splint on his right wrist and has had strapping on his forearm during Liverpool's last three matches.

Klopp also confirmed Jordan Henderson and Naby Keita remain sidelined with hamstring injuries, meaning they will miss the Arsenal game. They are also doubts for next week's trip to Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League.

"Mo, it is nothing really serious -- it's a kind of inflammation of the tendon," he told a news conference on Friday. "That's pretty much all.

"It [the support] was only for protection -- the pictures you saw were only protection and it has no influence.

"Hendo feels really good but it will be probably the start of the week when he will be back in training.

"Naby, end of this week. It doesn't make a big difference match-wise, but that's how it looks."

"In football, a not-too-serious injury takes still two, three or four weeks. You are lucky if you only have an injury like that, but that only means in the Premier League [you will miss] 20 games.

"They are completely in time, if you want. It's like we expected it. We didn't have to rush it -- actually we couldn't, but there was no reason for trying it.

"If the next game would be next Friday then probably both would be fit, but the next game is on Saturday and the other one on Tuesday, so that could be a bit tight."

Liverpool travel to the Emirates Stadium looking to extend their unbeaten start to the Premier League, but face an Arsenal side that have won all but one of their last 13 matches in all competitions.

It will be Klopp's first encounter with Unai Emery, who succeeded Arsene Wenger in May, since his Sevilla team beat Liverpool in the 2016 Europa League final.

"Arsene Wenger is one of the best managers in the world, there's no doubt about it," Klopp said. "And sometimes after a long time when the mood in a club changes, it's quite difficult to work against that.

"That was the situation a bit last year, people respected him a lot but on the other side they thought: 'Now we should change something.'

"A change is only good if it is for the better. Unai Emery, all people in football knew how good he is, but I am not sure all Arsenal fans were over the moon at first when they heard it would be Emery.

"But that's England a little bit, you want the poster boys. Unai was in France and before that in Spain in a smaller club, so you can go a bit under the radar.

"Not for all the people in football, though. I saw yesterday that he won eight titles in two or three years. That's pretty big. It was clear that things will change, and the players know now.

"If a new manager comes in -- it was the same with me here -- all players are immediately out of their comfort zone. They all have to prove from the first day that they are not only the name, they are the footballer as well. They used it obviously pretty well."

Liverpool remain level on points with reigning champions Manchester City after 10 games played.

After last week's win over Cardiff City that took Liverpool top, before City beat Tottenham Hotspur on Monday night, Klopp stated that the number of points amassed was more important than league positions at this stage of the season.

"I've said it a few times, my big, big, big assessment is: so far, so good," Klopp said. "Nothing else.

"A quarter of the season is nothing, we have three-quarters to come. It's still the start. We didn't do anything special, we expect from ourselves that we win football games."

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