Salah to return to training on Monday in boost for Liverpool

Liverpool star Mohamed Salah will return to training on Monday after testing negative for coronavirus, manager Jurgen Klopp said.

Salah missed Liverpool’s 3-0 win over Leicester City in the Premier League on Sunday after testing positive for COVID-19 while on international duty with Egypt.

But in a boost for Klopp’s injury-hit side, Salah is set to return to training in the lead up to Wednesday’s Champions League clash at home to Atalanta.

“That’s what I’ve heard, yes, it [was] negative today. I think he is from now on pretty normal in testing,” the Liverpool manager told a news conference.

“Tomorrow we have the UEFA testing for the Champions League and I am pretty sure he will be in that.

“He can now train with us tomorrow, that’s it. He will have two tests in the next two days, so, yes, he will be tested like all of us.”

Since arriving at Liverpool in 2017, Salah has missed just seven Premier League games – and Klopp’s men are unbeaten, although their win percentage drops to 57.1, compared to 73.3 when the star forward plays. They also average more goals for (2.3 to 1.9) and points per game (2.4 to 2.1) with Salah.

Against Leicester, Liverpool extended their unbeaten home run in the league to a club record 64 games after Diogo Jota and Roberto Firmino scored following Jonny Evans’ first-half own goal.

 consecutive home league games unbeaten – a new club record 

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But they suffered yet another injury concern, with midfielder Naby Keita hurting his hamstring in the win.

Klopp also confirmed Xherdan Shaqiri was sidelined with a muscle injury.

“Shaq, how I know it, he had a muscle injury with the national team which he didn’t really realise,” he said.

“Now he trained with us, we gave him a day off and then he came back and was involved in the session, but was not fully involved and all these kind of things. He just did a little bit, after that he felt a little bit. Then we did a scan and they found he has an injury from five or six days ago.

“Nobody knew about that, not even Shaq knew about it, but that’s how things sometimes are and so he was not able to be involved.”