Sturridge and Milner injury doubts for Liverpool opener against Arsenal

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

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

On Sturridge, boss Jurgen Klopp told liverpoolfc.com: “On Wednesday he could train; on Thursday, he felt (it) a little bit so we will have to see.

“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 Liverpool’s victory over Barca but Klopp is more upbeat about when he will have the versatile 30-year-old available again.

“With Millie we have to wait,” Klopp added.

“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.”

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has plenty of injury issues too, particularly in the central-defensive region, though Dejan Lovren has trained fully after a knock to increase Klopp’s own options in that region.

And summer signing Marko Grujic, another who picked up a slight niggle during last weekend’s double header, also returned to training on Thursday.