Jurgen Klopp confirms full extent of injury to Alexis Mac Allister

Jurgen Klopp has revealed the full extent of the injury to Alexis Mac Allister, calling it 'tricky'. The Liverpool boss sounds concerned.

Jurgen Klopp went into some detail on Wednesday as he talked about the injury to Alexis Mac Allister. The midfielder picked up a problem against Sheffield United last week after a bad challenge.

Essentially, the defender stepped on Mac Allister's knee, cutting it open. The Argentine played on until the second half but had to leave the pitch in discomfort shortly afterwards.

Klopp initially called it a 'bad cut' and the general feeling was that Mac Allister wouldn't miss too much time. It's increasingly become clear, however, that it's not merely a cut.

The Liverpool boss was asked for an update in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday. He confirmed the exact extent of the injury - and it doesn't sound particularly good.

"I'm obviously not a doctor, but they explain it to me pretty much every day why he's not ready yet," said Klopp. "It's a bit more tricky than we thought in the first moment.

"So, the other boy stepped on his knee and the stud went through the muscle onto the bone. Now we have to wait until the bone is healed and until Macca can deal with the pain. It's pretty painful and Macca is actually a super tough guy, so we have to make sure there's no infection - that's important.

"I've never had this injury for one of my players before but now we have it. I'd like to think it won't take that long but I'd like to say it's day by day. That would look like maybe he could play the next game but he will not be ready for that as well. But I hope the next three or four days he makes big steps and then we will see."

It sounds highly unlikely that Mac Allister will be ready to face Manchester United at the weekend, then. There's certainly no chance he plays on Thursday.

Everyone will cross their fingers for Mac Allister, then. It could have been far worse, by the sounds of it, and it's already a bad one. His 2023 shouldn't be done but it'll be a case of wait-and-see on those updates.