Mohamed Salah fitness latest
Mohamed Salah has been ruled out of Liverpool’s Champions League semi-final, second-leg tie with FC Barcelona on Tuesday, Jürgen Klopp has confirmed.
The Egyptian was forced from the pitch with a head injury during Saturday evening’s 3-2 victory at Newcastle United and will not be available for the meeting with the La Liga champions.
The Reds are also without the services of Roberto Firmino, who is continuing to recover from a muscle injury.
“Both are not available for tomorrow," Klopp told his pre-match press conference at Anfield on Monday.
“It’s a concussion [for Salah], so that means he would not even be allowed to play. That’s it, that’s all.
“He feels OK, but it is not good enough from a medical point of view, that’s all. He is desperate and everything, but we cannot do it. That’s it.”
Klopp confirmed he expects Salah to be available for Sunday’s final Premier League game of the season at home to Wolverhampton Wanderers.
However, with two of his forwards sidelined for the meeting with Barcelona, the manager was asked how he plans to approach the contest.
He replied: “The approach? We try to win the game, I thought that makes sense.
“Look, the situation with the 3-0 for Barcelona is obviously not exactly the situation you want to have before you play the second leg – and you cannot play against Barcelona and tell the world, ‘Watch this!’, after 10 minutes we are level and we try to turn it around or whatever. It’s not like this.
“We try to win the game and if the result we have in a specific moment gives us an opportunity to go to the next round, I think we should try. Until then, we just have to try to win the game and that’s the way we will do it, together with our supporters.
“It was a long season and there’s at least a little chance to make it even longer, but if not then these are the last two home games of an incredible season and I think we should celebrate that with a good performance on the pitch and with a very, very good performance in the stands. That would be really nice.”