Liverpool look set to be without Joel Matip for Sunday's top-of-the-table Premier League clash with Manchester United.
The 29-year old centre-back has missed Liverpool's last two top flight games through injury.
Liverpool trail their old rivals United by three-points heading into Sunday's crunch game at Anfield.
Matip's recent absences have added to Jurgen Klopp's defensive headaches. In this month's 1-0 loss at Southampton he was forced to play captain Jordan Henderson alongside another makeshift defender in Fabinho.
The manager was remaining coy on Matip's powers of recovery from an adductor injury, "Joel is close. Does it now make sense to throw him into a game with one or two sessions, which he didn't do yet, but today and tomorrow he might be involved?
"To bring him [in], I don't know. We have to see, we have to decide, we have to look at him and how he will train, how he looks in training and these kind of things, but we have still different solutions.
"Hendo is very important in midfield for us as well, so we just have to see. It's not decided yet, why should I?"
"Naby is not ready for involvement," Klopp revealed, "It's not a big thing; it's a little bit like with other players in the past when they came back from injuries and then because of the amount of games and situation in the squad they had to play.
"Then a little injury happened again. Now we just had to put on the brake and say, 'Let's settle it properly.' In the moment we have alternatives in midfield, so we really try to give him all the time he needs to get 100 per cent fit.
"That's the situation, so no, he is not in contention for Sunday."
Penalties
Klopp was once again asked to revisit comments he made regarding Manchester United in the wake of his side's loss at Southampton.
The Reds boss highlighted the number of penalties United have won under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.
In the two-years since the Norwegian took charge at Old Trafford, United have won 42 penalties. By contrast, Liverpool have won 46 during Klopp's five-year-plus reign at Anfield.
Marcus Rashford chummed the waters still further this week when he revealed that former United boss Jose Mourinho instructed them to be more savvy regarding winning penalties.
Klopp was asked on Friday whether he's ever instructed his players to win a spot-kick.
"Never," he replied, crossing his heart.
"I can 100% honestly say I never, never mentioned something like this to any player I have worked together with. "I have worked with a lot of players in my time and ask all of them, it never happened. That's it. "Am I surprised that somebody is talking about what I said about the Southampton game? No, I'm not. "Am I surprised that Mark Clattenburg speaks about it? No. I'm not sure if he's been asked a lot of things long after his career (has finished), so it's nice for him that we can talk about him as well." All-Stars debate, Thompson, Women Forgotten, Quinlan, Rena remembers Ryan, Bingo
