Daniel Sturridge and James Milner Fit to Face Burnley

When Sadio Mané was taken to hospital for a scan on his shoulder following a training injury, fears of the worst spread quickly. Just days after he’d put in the best debut performance many could remember seeing, fans were worried a dislocated shoulder could keep the club’s £34M attacker out for a month or even two.

Fortunately, the injury isn’t as bad as feared—a strain following a collision and awkward fall. It’s likely Mané won’t be involved against Burnley on Saturday, but manager Jürgen Klopp says that if he can’t face Burnley, then at the very least he doesn’t expect to be missing him for very much longer than that.

“It was a a challenge between two players up in the air, coming down, and then Sadio fell on his shoulder but it’s not that serious,” Klopp said. “In this moment I have no idea if he could be available for the weekend or not, but I don’t think it will take a long time. Things like this will always happen and you cannot avoid this.”

In other injury news, while Mané is a doubt for the weekend, Daniel Sturridge and James Milner are both back in training and will be expected to at least make the bench against Burnley on Saturday. Meanwhile, most of Liverpool’s other injured players are nearing their own returns.

“In full training we have Milly and Daniel,” Klopp said. “Lucas is on a good way and made the warm-up with us and then we let him do something else. Maybe today he trains in full with us. Mama is in a better way, too. Not part of team training but not too far away from it so that’s good.”

While Lucas and Mamadou Sakho won’t be options for a week or two, Milner and Sturridge will give Klopp a few choices to make when it comes to who faces Burnley. So will Emre Can and Divock Origi, who returned to pre-season later than most and whose training schedules have been behind the rest of the team.

“I haven't made a final decision about the line-up,” Klopp added. “I told the players in the meeting when we analysed the Arsenal game that it was good enough for a first game because we won, but we have a lot of things to improve and have players coming back to training.

“Emre Can was late coming back, but you could see in the second half he's now in a good way. Sturridge is back, Divock came later and is getting better, same for Joel Matip. Milly is back. My job is to watch during the week who gives me which signs, and then I decide on the line-up.”