Liverpool will miss Philippe Coutinho following the Brazilian’s ankle injury, but manager Jürgen Klopp is confident that the team can still flourish without their playmaker.
Coutinho had scored six goals in 13 games and laid on plenty more before suffering the injury in the win over Sunderland, and is now not expected to return to action until January at the earliest.
But the Reds won that game without the help of their talisman, and Klopp told reporters at the club’s Melwood training ground that the loss of the former Inter man is not the end of the world.
Phil Coutinho is a really good football player. So if we cannot use him for the next few days or weeks, each team in the world would feel it, that’s how it is,” Klopp said.
“He is a very important part of this team, absolutely, but of course we can deal with it. It’s not the best thing I can imagine, that I dreamt about it and thought it was a good idea that we can show we can play without Phil.”
While he acknowledged that he would prefer for Coutinho (and fellow injury victims Adam Lallana and Daniel Sturridge) to be fit, he suggested it is a team effort that has got the club to where they are right now.
“As good as [Coutinho] is, he cannot decide games by himself, even when it looks sometimes like this because he takes the ball, dribbles and shoots,” the manager explained.
“But then it’s only a goal or whatever, then everybody has to defend so it’s really a team performance that we create.”
Klopp revealed that Sturridge and Lallana are both close to first-team returns, but neither will be available for the EFL Cup quarter-final against Leeds United on Tuesday.
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