Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is confident that Alexis Mac Allister has avoided a serious injury after a scare in Wednesday's 4-1 Premier League win over Chelsea.
The Argentina international suffered a worrying blow to the knee in the second half of the encounter at Anfield, having come off worse in a collision with Chelsea's Cesare Casadei.
Klopp cut a concerned figure as Mac Allister stayed down on the turf to receive treatment, but by that point, the hosts had already made their five allocated substitutions.
As a result, Mac Allister was forced to see out the remainder of the match after trudging to the touchline, and his knock raised a few fears about his availability for Sunday's blockbuster battle with Arsenal.
Addressing the condition of his squad in his post-game press conference, Klopp admitted that his crop were "knackered" in the dressing room but played down Mac Allister's concern as little more than a contact injury.
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"Now the next game is coming in four days and I have no idea who can play again because they looked quite knackered when I had a look in the dressing room," Klopp said.
"Little back here, Macca [Alexis Mac Allister] on the knee – knee on knee – stuff like this. Nothing major, at least nobody told me that yet. So it's all fine.
"We need them all – and it's not a phrase, it's exactly how it is. And I'm happy for them they all could perform the way they performed. The next massive game is coming up already, at Arsenal, and let's recover and go again."
Liverpool are already set to be without Mohamed Salah (muscle), Ben Doak (knee), Joel Matip (knee), Stefan Bajcetic (calf), Kostas Tsimikas (collarbone) and Thiago Alcantara (fitness) for the trip to the Emirates, while Wataru Endo remains on Asian Cup duty with Japan.
The recently-recovered Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson were also snubbed for starts on Wednesday evening, and in the former's place, Conor Bradley excelled with a goal and two assists for Diogo Jota and Dominik Szoboszlai before Luis Diaz added a fourth for the hosts.
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Bradley's eye-catching performance leaves Klopp with a fascinating selection dilemma ahead of Sunday's game with Arsenal, especially after Alexander-Arnold's crucial contribution in the Reds' FA Cup win at the Emirates last month.
While hailing the club's academy prospects for helping to guide Liverpool through the unrelenting winter schedule, Klopp refused to label the Bradley-Alexander-Arnold quandary a "nice situation" to have.
"There's no situation, it's just how it is. We finally realised we had seven games in January with 11 days off in between, I don't know how we fitted them in but obviously we had to start January 1. And we couldn't have put the string of results together we had without the boys, without the kids," Klopp added.
"Without [Jarell] Quansah, no chance. We have both left-backs out, Trent out, midfielders out, all these things. [On Sunday] we played with James McConnell on six and he played extremely well. So, these boys used now the situation, and that's exactly in an ideal world how it should be."
Liverpool's thrashing of Mauricio Pochettino's side saw the Reds re-establish their five-point advantage over Arsenal and Manchester City at the Premier League summit, although the latter still possess a game in hand.
Ben Knapton
