Liverpool star Roberto Firmino faces a race against time to be fit for Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final first leg at Barcelona after suffering a small muscle tear.
The Reds continued their impressive form on Friday night with an emphatic 5-0 win over already-relegated Huddersfield Town at Anfield.
Naby Keita opened the scoring after just 15 seconds, before Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah both found the back of the net twice for Jurgen Klopp’s side to return to the top of the Premier League.
Daniel Sturridge replaced Firmino in leading the line, and the Brazilian’s absence was a hot topic in Klopp’s post-match press conference.
When asked about Firmino’s current condition, Klopp, talking to the Liverpool Echo, said:
Bobby trained yesterday (Thursday) completely normal. It was not high intensity. We had to work on set-pieces a little bit and a couple of things.
I didn’t see it in training, it happened after the last situation in training he felt a muscle a little bit.
The official diagnosis is that he has a small tear in a very small muscle. Apart from the word ‘tear’ everything is positive.
It’s Bobby, so he might be ready for Wednesday but we don’t know obviously at the moment.
But because it’s him, it’s rather likely than not. But we will see.
Of all the bad news we could get, it’s probably the best. But it’s still bad enough that he couldn’t play tonight.
Despite Firmino’s Wednesday involvement against Barcelona in doubt, Liverpool were handed an injury boost as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain made his first Liverpool appearance in over a year when he replaced Sturridge for the final 15 minutes on Friday.
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