Liverpool Fear Ligament Damage As Philippe Coutinho Booked In For Scan

Klopp’s side were involved in a war of attrition yesterday as failed to break down Sunderland during the first half.

It frustrated Klopp that much that he ran down the touchline at one stage, screaming at the Kop to raise their volume levels to give the Reds an edge.

A Divock Origi goal and James Milner penalty saw Klopp’s men to a 2-0 win over Sunderland on Saturday, although they were made to wait until the final 15 minutes at Anfield.

So it was ironic that the one occasion the on-loan Manchester City defender lost his man resulted in Coutinho’s injury, as Didier Ndong’s follow-through caught the right foot of the forward who was trying to jink past him.

I had great conversations with [Mauricio] Pochettino and Klopp, but with Jurgen, we had a laugh and did not speak only about football.

They looked disciplined, organised while, for most of the second half, Victor Anichebe played at left-back as it was all hands to the pump.

“We all need to learn to handle a situation like this”.

“Do you think we have so many options?”

“I believe in atmosphere”.

Klopp said: “He had a tight calf”.

“It is no pressure, a big joy, a big honour”.

It would have been easy for Moyes to ask Jason Denayer to slot back in at the heart of the defence in the absence of Papy Djilobodji, but he had other ideas.

Eager not to allow Coutinho’s injury cloud their second half, Liverpool pushed heavily for a goal after the interval, with Firmino going close after some excellent close control in the penalty area. He says, “There is a lot of it. [Klopp] is teaching us to press when we don’t have the ball and keeping that pressure up”.

“What we know it is something with the ankle but that’s it”.

“He had pain. Pain gets better”. “I could feel, well, I couldn’t actually describe how I felt at that moment”, Origi said post-match. “I am actually quite an optimistic guy – so I hope he can train tomorrow!” the German coach added about the Brazilian’s injury.

But Llorente netted twice in the 91st and 93rd minute to put the home side back on top, and they hung on grimly through seven minutes of injury time for the three precious points that take them off the bottom of the table. We have not been good enough defensively recently. It was always going to be a hard job coming here.

Coutinho then explained how he is “linking up well” with all of the players on the pitch, he said, “when the team is playing well, the individuals in the team look like they are playing better”. We did a really good job on them.