Liverpool face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup fourth round on Thursday
Jurgen Klopp has all his stars back from international duties following the World Cup exit of their respective nations in the ongoing World Cup in Qatar.
The Liverpool manager is expecting both Trent Alexander-Arnold and Jordan Henderson to be available for the Thursday trip to Manchester City but was less sanguine about Virgil van Dijk's chances of playing.
Henderson and Alexander-Arnold trained informally in Dubai earlier this week after linking up with their club-mates following England's exit in the World Cup quarterfinal knockout tie against France on December 10.
The previous night, Van Dijk had led the Netherlands to a 2-2 draw with Argentina before being knocked out on penalties. Klopp has given his entire World Cup contingent a week off following their respective eliminations in Qatar, but hinted that captain Henderson and Alexander-Arnold are both available for the fourth round.
"Yeah, there's a chance, of course – they train already," Klopp said after the Milan match on Friday. "Hendo is already training here. Virg is training here but I don't think we will try that. Hendo we will see, Trent we will see.
"But this group [has] worked now together for nearly two weeks and we made a real step and that's cool. I don't know at this moment. I hope we all get through it and we all know in England, and in Europe in general, there's kind of a virus going around, so we hope we can stay out of that.
"Then we will make the decision obviously on Wednesday who can play on Thursday. But it's good and will be a very interesting game after that period but I'm looking forward to it."
Liverpool ended their training camp at Dubai amid the World Cup with a 4-1 win over AC Milan in the Dubai Super Cup on Friday. The Reds got an early lead through Mohamed Salah after a brilliant display from Joel Matip before the Italian responded through Alexis Salemex. Thiagos Alcantara restored Liverpool's lead with a superb strike before substitute Darwin Nunez scored twice.
However, in the post-match penalty shootout - under Dubai Super Cup rules - Milan won 4-3.
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