Liverpool unsure if Daniel Sturridge and James Milner will be fit for Arsenal test

The Liverpool manager, Jürgen Klopp, could be without both Daniel Sturridge and James Milner when they kick off their new Premier League campaign at Arsenal on Sunday.

Sturridge missed Liverpool’s final two pre-season fixtures last weekend with a hip injury which flared up again at training on Thursday while his former England colleague Milner, who recently retired from international football, sustained a bruised heel during Saturday’s 4-0 win over Barcelona.

“On Wednesday he Sturridge could train; on Thursday, he felt it a little bit so we will have to see,” Klopp told the club website. “Of course, he had a few days where he couldn’t train and that’s not too good for the Arsenal game, but we have other players who are available and that’s good for us.

“Hopefully it stays like this and we can give Daniel enough time so that when he is fit again, he can then become match fit in the next few days. There are a lot of games to play.

“It is nothing serious with him, but it was enough to get him out of training and so now we have to see. It’s how I always say, we have to think about the players that are available at the moment and all the other guys have to work as hard as possible to become fit again.”

Milner was spotted leaving Wembley on crutches following the victory over Barcelona but Klopp is more upbeat about when he will have the versatile 30-year-old available again.

“With Millie we have to wait,” said Klopp, who has welcomed back Dejan Lovren and Marko Grujic to training this week. “It’s better than we all expected after the [Barcelona] game when we saw him walking out of the stadium on crutches – that’s not the best picture you want to see after a game.

“On Sunday he felt better, on Monday he felt better. It’s a bruise in the heel, so that’s really painful and I can say that when it is too painful for Millie, then it’s really painful.

“We will take no risk at the moment, we have to wait until everybody says we can go on and that’s what we’ll do.”

The Arsenal manager, Arsène Wenger, has plenty of injury issues too, particularly in central defence, with Per Mertesacker ruled out for months and Gabriel expected to be sidelined for six to eight weeks.