Liverpool forward Diogo Jota will miss their Community Shield meeting with Premier League champions Manchester City on July 30 due to a muscle injury, manager Juergen Klopp said on Friday.
Jota sustained a hamstring injury with Portugal last month and skipped Liverpool’s 4-0 pre-season defeat by Manchester United in Thailand on Tuesday as a precaution, before aggravating the issue in midweek.
Asked if Jota and goalkeeper Alisson Becker - who is also nursing an injury - would return in time for the FA Cup holders when they face City, Klopp told reporters: “Ali, I think, has the chance for City and Diogo not.”
Klopp, whose team beat fellow Premier League side Crystal Palace 2-0 on Friday in Singapore, added Alisson’s abdominal injury was not serious.
Full season
“But, again, we prepare a full season,” he said. “So he can train but not like before, so he should not play in the moment. Not normal goalkeeper training but he has a pre-season, so he doesn’t lose time.
“But these kind of things happen. The boys have to travel a lot and train and you never know exactly. It’s only little things, nothing serious but we have to be careful because the rest of the season is much longer than the start.”
Midfielder Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was substituted with a muscle injury in the game against Palace, while defender Joe Gomez was left out as a precaution.
