Luis Díaz “100 Percent Ready” Ahead of Leeds

In his pre-Leeds press conference, head coach Jürgen Klopp spoke about squad fitness and player availability, noting that fans can expect the return of Luis Díaz as promised:

[Díaz is] 100 per cent ready in training so that’s it now. He is now completely normal in training and now we have to reintegrate him. He will be in the squad, if nothing happens Luis will be in the squad and from there we go. That’s it.

Yeah, absolutely it is [like having a new signing]. Luis, he developed massively. In that time his English is getting better, so he is really settled. He was here every day – how it is with injured players and especially long-term injured players, they are even more at the training ground than all the others, so every day together with therapists and stuff like this. He really matured again, he is much more comfortable than he was in the beginning with everything in a new country, so that’s really good and it will help him as well. So, we are really happy to have him back.

He is like a breath of fresh air every day he is in training. He loves it out there, I said in the beginning when he came that he cannot train without a smile on his face and that’s something really special and that’s exactly how he acts now. But he was out for a long time, it was not his season so far. Last week we played against Arsenal, the game before against Arsenal, the away game, was the game he got injured so a long time ago. Then one session in Dubai, out again, and now being back – it’s really a long time. But it’s absolutely fine – he didn’t lose his skills, that’s good, but how I said we have to see how step by step we can bring him back into the team.

As Thiago, too, has returned to full fitness, Liverpool finally have as close to a full squad available as possible — and the timing is good, since the Reds will look to maximize wins for the remainder of the season.