Jurgen Klopp has allayed fears over Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s injury return.
Oxlade-Chamberlain made his long-awaited Liverpool comeback as the club’s under-23 side ran out 3-1 winners over Derby County last Friday.
The midfielder was due to complete a 45-minute run out in the game but was withdrawn just minutes before the interval with an apparent hamstring issue.
However Klopp insists Oxlade-Chamberlain’s substitution was just precautionary as he aims to feature for the Reds’ first-team before the end of this season.
He said: “The good news is the knee is perfect – nothing happened, that was our only concern.
“Football games are different to football training, that’s why he felt the muscle a little bit, and thank God we were smart enough to take him off.
“Even if it was only five minutes earlier than we thought [before the game]. That made absolute sense. Nothing else happened.
“We always said he needs time. Maybe I’m a bit guilty for being too excited about it; if nobody asked me I wouldn’t start talking about Ox, to be honest.
“But they ask me and I say the truth – and the truth was it looked so exciting in training. But it’s only small-sided games, shooting situations and all that.
“It’s Ox, we all know and love him, that’s cool, but, at the end of the day, we all need to make sure we are ready for the big-size pitch. And for this he just needs time. It’s all good.”