Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson has revealed that right-back Glen Johnson could return from injury in the Europa League clash with Napoli on Thursday night – but Dirk Kuyt, Daniel Agger and Joe Cole are all out.
Johnson has missed the past four games with a muscle injury but, after training on Tuesday, he is likely to be involved at some stage on Thursday. Cole, meanwhile, could yet make a surprise return to face his former club Chelsea on Sunday.
“Johnson trained today,” Hodgson revealed to the club's official website.
“If nothing happens tomorrow then he can play on Thursday.
“Dirk Kuyt is making extraordinary progress and with any luck he’ll train with the team on Friday.
“For the weekend [match against Chelsea] he’s a possibility if all goes well with the training sessions on Friday and Saturday.
“With Cole it’s not as bad as feared. It shouldn’t keep him out for that long. I would say it’s a week to 10-day injury.
“The scan was positive in that it’s a very minor tear he has, but you can’t really put a definite date on how long that tear is going to take to repair, but the physical people are very optimistic.
“It’s a question of how quickly he can recover and what progress he can make. At the moment he’s not even ruled out for the Chelsea game, but we’ll see how he goes later in the week.”
Agger, meanwhile, is still expected to be out for some time, having not featured since September 25 due to a calf problem.
“Daniel Agger has quite a serious problem with his calf,” Hodgson explained.
“It’s a question of time and there’s not much more the physios and medical staff can do. We have to be patient.”
While Agger has been out, Sotirios Kyrgiakos has impressed in the centre of defence.
The 31-year-old also missed half of Tuesday’s training session as a precaution, however.
“Kyrgiakos is feeling his groin slightly,” Hodgson revealed. “As a matter of caution we took him out of today’s training session half way through to give him a bit of a rest.”
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