Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has been ruled out of the rest of the Premier League champions' campaign after the midfielder sustained a knee injury in their midweek win at Brighton & Hove Albion, manager Jürgen Klopp said on Friday.
Klopp was forced to withdraw Henderson 10 minutes from fulltime in the 3-1 win after a collision with Yves Bissouma but the German said the 30-year-old does not require surgery.
— Jordan Henderson (@JHenderson) July 10, 2020
"It is the best possible of the bad news. He does not need surgery," Klopp told reporters in a virtual news conference. "He will not play again this season. I'm pretty positive he will be with us for the new season, he is a quick healer.
"We all felt for him, awful moment. We knew immediately. Hendo is an animal he fights for everything. He deals well with pain but in this moment, he knew something had happened. It was a complete mood killer.
"The boys were happy with the result but then the boys realised Hendo was hurt. No surgery needed is the good news. He will lift the trophy, he deserves to lift the trophy."
@JHenderson will lift the @premierleague trophy for us as planned, Jürgen Klopp has confirmed...
— Liverpool FC (Premier League Champions ) (@LFC) July 10, 2020
Liverpool, who are on 92 points with four games remaining, are on course to break Manchester City's record haul of 100 points and face Burnley on Saturday.
Liverpool winger Mohamed Salah is in the running for the Golden Boot for the league's top scorer again after winning the award last season, but the Egyptian is three goals behind Leicester City striker Jamie Vardy who has 22.
Klopp hailed Salah's heroics after he was involved in all three goals at Brighton but dismissed talk of Liverpool's players deliberately passing the ball for him to score and catch up with Vardy.
"I saw the replays back and Bobby (Roberto Firmino) was not in the best position for the shot and Mo was in a better place," Klopp said. "I don't think he did it for the Golden Boot. You cannot have that mindset, we all help.
"They all want to score goals, Bobby wants to score goals. That's the mindset that we need."
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru Editing by Christian Radnedge and Pritha Sarkar)
