Jurgen Klopp will make a late call on whether to include Thiago Alcantara for Liverpool’s trip to Newcastle United.
Thiago has featured just twice for the Premier League champions heading into their final encounter of 2020 at St James’ Park on Wednesday evening.
The Spain international, 29, spent almost two months on the sidelines with a knee injury sustained during October’s Merseyside derby draw with Everton.
He is now back in training with the Reds’ squad and could make further steps towards a long-awaited comeback by being included to face the Magpies
“Thiago did parts of training so far,” said Klopp.
“On Friday he trained the full session but the session was a reduced session so he could do that. He just has to be part of team training.
“It’s not about training one day with the team and then you can play football in the Premier League again. It looks quite promising in the moment.
“But I cannot say more about it, to be honest.
“I think the plan was for him to train completely normally [on Monday and Tuesday] but we will see later.”
Liverpool head to the North East on the back of a 1-1 draw with West Brom which constituted their first dropped league points on home soil this season.
However Klopp insists that the quality of his side is not in doubt despite the setback, which came on the back of their 7-0 drubbing of Crystal Palace.
He added: “The boys are a top group. They were a top group after winning 7-0 [at Palace] and they are a top group after drawing against West Brom.
“That’s how it is and that doesn’t change. I want to win more than anything else but it doesn’t happen all the time. This is completely fine.
“We will learn from it and play football again.”