Friday brought the manager’s final pre-match press conference of the 2022/23 season and a whole host of other stories including a bizarre pre-season update. Jurgen Klopp suggested that both Andy Robertson and Ibrahima Konate may not be available for the weekend’s trip to Southampton due to Robertson feeling something in his groin during training and Konate suffering from illness. This leaves plenty of permutations in terms of team selection, with the boss indicating that “it makes sense that we make changes” for Sunday’s game. Darwin Nunez could be available for the season finale having trained “fully” with the squad on Thursday.
Jude Bellingham is reportedly edging closer to a move to Real Madrid for a fee that may raise a few eyebrows. Liverpool’s pre-season training camp in Tegernsee has been scrapped amid complaints about the condition the area was left in after the last visit in 2017. James Milner has been gifted the turf of the penalty spot at Anfield by the club’s groundstaff ahead of his departure this summer.
Klopp has admitted that Fabio Carvalho could go out on loan next season, but the manager did insist that “no player” has impressed him more in this campaign. The boss also suggested that early signings will not be easy to come by this summer and that he expects business to take longer than he would like “in an ideal world”. After Mohamed Salah‘s apologetic social media post on Thursday night generated a lot of attention, Klopp responded by giving supporters plenty of reasons to be optimistic ahead of 2023/24.
Elsewhere, Frank Lampard has said he will “never feel like he is saying goodbye” to Chelsea, Sam Allardyce says he hopes he has “a hangover” after Leeds‘ fight for Premier League safety this weekend, and Davolaa tweeted an old clip of Rafael Benitez explaining the tactics behind Liverpool’s incredible comeback in the 2005 Champions League Final.