Dejan Lovren is expected to return to the Liverpool squad for Sunday’s pre-season friendly against Bradford City.
Dejan Lovren to get minutes at Valley Parade
The Croatian returned to Melwood on Tuesday morning and therefore didn’t feature in the opening fixture against Tranmere Rovers.
Joining up with the squad alongside Divock Origi, he will be part of the next phase of pre-season rotation, gaining valuable minutes to build up his fitness ahead of the new campaign.
“Dejan will be back,” Klopp told Liverpool.com.
“With him, we had the same thing we will do now with the guys who came back today. But he will be playing tomorrow, of course.”
Having suffered an injury last season that ruled him out for a significant period, Lovren will need to play catchup to Joel Matip and Joe Gomez, who have both forged strong partnerships with Virgil van Dijk in the last few months. Thus, pre-season could be a big chance for him to prove his worth to Klopp’s plans.
Klopp set to rotate heavily again at Bradford City
Liverpool fielded two entirely different teams in each half against Tranmere on Thursday night, sharing the workload in a 6-0 rout that saw Champions League hero Divock Origi score alongside a brace from young Rhian Brewster, Nathaniel Clyne, Curtis Jones and Bobby Duncan.
It would appear that Klopp will opt for a similar strategy against Bradford, bringing in those who have recently returned from their summer breaks while allowing the youngsters to stake a claim in the first-team plans.
“I don’t think we will change [much], said Klopp when speaking to the club’s official website. “Maybe it will be really similar line-ups playing together because it looked good so, come on, why not? Get a bit of rhythm and stuff like that.”
“We have to wait [to see] who can play and who cannot not play. It will be similar – and hopefully similarly good football because I liked it a lot.”
“For a first game, I was really impressed. Now we have to show that we can do it again and again. Hopefully the boys will do that.”