Nathaniel Clyne poised for first game this season with Liverpool right-back ready to replace injured Joe Gomez
England right-back has not played this season after a series of injuries but could make an immediate return to the starting line-up against Crystal Palace on Saturday
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Your support makes all the difference.Liverpool defender Nathaniel Clyne will be included in a match-day squad for the first time since pre-season for Saturday’s trip to Crystal Palace.
The 26-year-old has not featured for the Reds since a friendly at Tranmere Rovers on 12 July after a combination of injuries, the most troublesome of which has been a back problem that required surgery in November.
Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp may be tempted to start with Clyne against Palace at Selhurst Park with one eye on Liverpool’s two-legged Champions League tie against Manchester City either side of the Merseyside derby.
Liverpool’s regular right-back this season, Joe Gomez, has been ruled out for around a month with an ankle injury picked up while on international duty for England against Holland.
The experience of Clyne may be more preferable for Klopp in a high-profile fixture against City rather than banking on Trent Alexander-Arnold and he will need at least one game under his belt to prove his fitness.
“Clyne is fine now. That’s good,” Klopp said. “He played during the international break for the Under-23s. He’s in good shape so he will be part of the squad for tomorrow at least.
“That’s good for us because we cannot have enough players. It’s not easy for players when they play come back from injuries.
“Clyne played pretty much all the time and then he had this injury and was away for a while. But now he is back and that’s good.
“One or two games more would be nice but the situation is like it is. We have Clyney.
“I said yesterday to the boys that we lost Joe but finally we got Clyney back. He has been back for a few weeks already but he has come closer and closer. He is a very good option.”
Klopp is optimistic that Gomez will feature again this season despite the injury blow.
He continued: “The good news about Joe Gomez is it that it could have been everything. But from the bad news we could have got, the best is that it is serious enough to leave him out for a few games but not for the rest of the season.
“So it’s difficult to give a time schedule for that but we hope he is back in training in three or four weeks. That will give us the option to use him and play.
“At the moment, it’s serious – and serious enough to rule him out for the next few games. But I think we will see Joe back on the pitch this season, it’s pretty sure, how it looks at the moment.
“He feels much better already but of course we need to be careful. I don’t know exactly how long but we hopefully have a lot of games to come and he will be part of a few.”
Klopp also laughed off speculation that midfielder Emre Can has demanded a new £200,000-a-week contract to stay at Anfield.
The Germany midfielder’s current deal expires at the end of the season but talks have reached a deadlock with Juventus and Bayern Munich among those interested in signing him.
“Yeah, it was 250!” Klopp joked. “Well the situation at the moment is open. That’s what he said before. Nothing is decided, it’s open.
“We are in talks with him and all good so far – apart from that he [hasn’t] signed a contract for us. That’s all OK, no problem with that.”
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