Jurgen Klopp has refuted claims Thiago Alcantara is set to miss the rest of Liverpool’s season.
Thiago was among four first-team players to test positive for Covid-19 in the run-up to Christmas before sustaining a hip problem on his return to training.
But the Spain international’s failure to feature since the win over Newcastle on December 16 had led to speculation that his injury was a long-term issue.
Speaking after his side’s FA Cup third round win over Shrewsbury on Sunday, however, Klopp shot down the rumours concerning his 30-year-old midfielder.
Asked about Thiago’s earliest return date, he insisted: “Neither March nor the end of the season in my mind
“It is something around the hip, that is the situation.
“It needs time now. He didn’t train this week but we expect him to be back to do rehab stuff from Monday on and then we will see.
“No, it is not that he is out until the end of the season, not at all.”
Klopp also revealed that the Reds, who will host Cardiff City in the fourth round, had suffered a raft of false positive Covid-19 results earlier this week.
The AXA Training Centre had to be temporarily closed and their Carabao Cup semi-final with Arsenal deferred due to the apparent rising cases in the squad.
“We had, how we thought last week, a proper outbreak and it showed up that we had a lot of false positives actually,” confirmed the Liverpool manager.
“But still the rules are like they are and so all these players who are false positive couldn’t play today or we decided not to play them for whatever.
“People would have decided if we would have played them, I don’t know exactly, but we had to make that decision.
“The only real positive case from the team extra was Trent Alexander-Arnold and all the rest were false positives.”