Alisson Becker and Diogo Jota to miss Community Shield for Liverpool

By Andy Hampson, PA

Liverpool will be without goalkeeper Alisson Becker and forward Diogo Jota when they face Manchester City in the Community Shield on Saturday.

Both players have been injured during pre-season and neither will be able to feature in the curtain-raiser at the King Power Stadium.

Alisson is the closest to being available having resumed training after an abdominal problem but the Brazilian is targeting the opening Premier League game against Fulham on August 6th.

Jota has been sidelined with a hamstring injury and is not even with the squad at their training camp in Austria this week.

Manager Jurgen Klopp said at a press conference on Thursday: “Ali trained today more than the day before, so he will definitely be available for Fulham, but not for the weekend.

“Diogo is not here with us so how could he play a football game? It will take a while, unfortunately.”

Due to the early start to the campaign this year, Klopp admits he has not had enough time in pre-season to do all the work he would have liked.

Because of that, the Reds are to play another friendly the day after the Community Shield and they are to arrange another for after the Fulham fixture.

Klopp said: “We have to extend our pre-season, if you like, into the season.

“We play on Saturday against City and we play a pre-season friendly on Sunday against Strasbourg. Then Fulham and the next day we play another game.”

Nevertheless, Klopp is hoping his FA Cup-winning side can hit the ground running this weekend against champions City, the team who pipped them to the Premier League title by just one point last season.

The German said: “It’s very important. We have played this ‘final’ a couple of times and it would be nice if we could win it. It’s the last domestic cup competition we didn’t win yet, so we will give it a try.”