Diogo Jota missed almost three months with a knee injury he sustained against Midtjylland in the Champions League on December 9; Jurgen Klopp: "He was a big miss, a big miss"; Wolves vs Liverpool is live on Sky Sports Premier League from 7pm on Monday Night Football, kick-off 8pm
Saturday 13 March 2021 16:19, UK
Diogo Jota was a "big miss" for Liverpool and his return to fitness is "really important for plenty of reasons", says Jurgen Klopp.
Jota missed almost three months with a knee injury he sustained against Midtjylland in the Champions League on December 9 but returned to the Liverpool side as a second-half substitute in last week's defeat by Chelsea.
The Portugal international then started recent clashes with Fulham and RB Leipzig, playing the full match against the Cottagers and 71 minutes against the Bundesliga club.
Jota has scored nine goals in 17 appearances following his transfer from Wolves in September and Liverpool boss Klopp admits his absence was a significant loss.
Asked during his pre-Wolves press conference about the return of the 24-year-old, Klopp said: "He was a big miss, a big miss. I think the moment when he got injured he was in a really good moment, which always then makes the fact, which is already bad, that the player is injured even worse.
"What does he bring? His qualities. He can play up front in all three positions, he played all three positions for us and that is already really helpful. He can play them on a really high level, so he makes us stronger, which is really good.
"Now he is back and had to play the first game immediately [for] 90 minutes, which was definitely not planned and just happened in the game because of other things we had to do. That was then the reason why he played 70 in the second game.
"He was fine, he felt after the game OK, the next day he was a bit knackered and that's normal. Now he should be fine again. It is really important that we have him back for plenty of reasons."
Liverpool have lost six of their past seven Premier League matches to drop down to eighth position in the table, seven points behind fourth-placed Chelsea in the race for a Champions League finish.
Roberto Firmino will be assessed ahead of Monday night's match at Wolves, live on Sky Sports. The forward has missed his side's past two games with a knock and his fitness will be checked before the journey to Molineux.
"We will see. Bobby was not with us [against RB Leipzig], that means he couldn't play," Klopp said.
"Now we have a few more days and later on, we have the medical meeting actually after the press conference - sorry! - so they will give me more information about that. We will see, two more days, hopefully.
"[It] looks like in the moment [everybody else is fit]."
As for more long-term prospects in the Reds squad, Klopp was also asked about defender Ben Davies, signed from Preston on Deadline Day in January's transfer window for a fee that could rise to £1.6m but yet to make his Liverpool debut.
"Ben is a really good player but he has to get used to all the stuff here as well. What we have now is options and hopefully it will stay like this," added Klopp.
"It was clear that we will not start with two new centre-halves if we don't have to, because of the situation and the position.
"It's really important that the boys in the last line, especially, are used to each other, and the more games you can play together, the better it is. So that's why we…tried to make it as consistent as possible.
"But a lot of things disturbed that process but now it's OK. Ben will play when he will play, so that's how it is."
