Jurgen Klopp says Virgil van Dijk returning for Liverpool this season would be ‘a miracle’.
Van Dijk has been making progressive steps in his rehabilitation from a knee injury sustained during the first half of October’s Merseyside derby at Everton.
The Holland international is still ahead of schedule in his road to recovery which led to hopes that he would feature in the climax of the Reds’ campaign.
But Klopp shot down those suggestions on Tuesday ahead of finalising his updated squad list for the second half of this season in the Premier League.
He said: “I don’t know where these things are coming from.
“No doctor really told me that there is a chance for Virgil to play in this season again.
“I don’t want to say that is absolutely impossible but it is not likely, so we don’t have to discuss these things really.
“If we have space [on the squad list] we will put them all on even when the medical people tell us there is no chance.
“We put them on because we believe in miracles from time to time.
“But if there is no space then we have to consider these things and say the chances are not too big so we have to make a decision.
“If they are on the list then it is only because we hope for nearly a miracle. That’s it”
January arrivals Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies are set to be named by Liverpool for their squads in the latter stages of the top flight and Champions League.
Fellow defender Nat Phillips will also be involved for Europe’s elite club competition after missing out on a place in the list for the group stage.
“Both have experience on their level,” Klopp said of Kabak and Davies.
“Ozan is pretty young but that makes it really special because he has this experience. Ben is the same, slightly older, different pathway but I like that.
“You don’t need to watch a Hollywood movie to see these kind of stories in football. Yesterday Preston today Liverpool, that’s a nice story already.
“Our situation is really strange. Our problem for months has been if one more thing happens then we don’t know what to do. Then we start struggling.
“The solutions we found so far are good and now we have more options.
“We are in a position where team patterns are really important, that everyone knows what they are doing, and players come in new.
“We don’t live in an ideal world and that means we have to be smart, be quick and we try everything to do that.
“There are different things we can do to help them so it goes faster but we play different to Preston and different to Schalke.
“It needs a lot of time but we don’t have a lot of time, so we will use the time in our hands to our best.”