The midfielder sustained bruising to his face during the Reds’ 2-0 win at Manchester City but Arne Slot thinks he will be ready to face Eddie Howe’s side at Anfield on Wednesday night.

During his pre-match press conference on Tuesday morning, Slot said: “Yes, I think he will [be available]. He will train with us today.”

The head coach was also asked for an update on the condition of Conor Bradley, who picked up an injury in last Wednesday’s 2-2 draw at Villa Park.

Slot added: “He is out for a few weeks. I cannot tell exactly how many but it is clear that he went off with a muscle injury and that it is going to take a while before he is back.”

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The fixture against Newcastle concludes a run of five Premier League games in 15 days for table-topping Liverpool.

Slot was quizzed on whether such a schedule is ‘difficult’ for his players to manage and if it necessitates squad rotation versus Howe’s team.

“I am not so sure if it is difficult because these players are trained for this and are used to this, so if they go to a World Cup or the Euros they have to play those amount of games in a short spell of time as well,” he replied.

“So, they are able to do so but I sometimes feel like if we have a gap in between and the game starts it’s, ‘Oh, they are not as aggressive as they were.’

“So, they are in a certain rhythm and they have shown many times this season already that they are able to, but it was the reason why I changed my line-up against Plymouth [Argyle] so drastically because I don’t think you can do this for a whole season.

“So, you need to have, once in every four or five weeks, a ‘normal week’ and what I call a normal week is two games in a week instead of three games in a week.

“Of course, that hurt us in the FA Cup but it also means these players are now able to play five games in a row at the highest possible level.”

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