There were few surprises at Melwood on Thursday as Jurgen Klopp sat down for his latest Liverpool press conference.
Ostensibly to preview the Reds' FA Cup third round tie with Everton on Friday night, there were of course plenty of other issues on the agenda.
Little wonder, with stories about Philippe Coutinho all over the English and Spanish media this week. The Merseyside derby, incredibly, has felt almost like a sideshow compared to the Brazilian.
Coutinho was not the only hot topic at Klopp's press conference mind you.
Here are a few of the other talking points from Melwood...
Philippe Coutinho leaves Liverpool
He REALLY didn't want to discuss Coutinho's future
"Look, all the things I could say now would only create stories,” he said. “You write them anyway!
“I have nothing to say about it. That's how it is. It's a transfer window, but that's all.
“I know that means I've already opened the door half way, because I mentioned the transfer window. But there is nothing to say.
"Nothing I could say now would help me, the player or the club. That's the only thing I'm interested in.
“Whatever you can 'consider' is not my cup of tea. It sounds harsh to say, but I am not interested in that, sorry!
"Maybe 80% of the cameras are only here for this so that's a waste of time!”
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But he would discuss his fitness
“Mo and Phil are not available. It's not possible.
“Phil is in a bunch of players I think who are available for the City game. That's the 14 of January, right? Yeah, I think so.”
He's ready to go strong against Everton
“The line-up will be a line-up that shows all the respect that we have for the FA Cup. I know that a few people have said that I don't respect the cup enough, but that's not the truth. Maybe we have to make that a bit more obvious.
“If we play two days later maybe I consider a different team, but we always try to do it. Afterwards we get judged – wrong line-up, right line-up. It will be the strongest line-up for sure.”
But will that include Virgil van Dijk?
“He's healthy and now I have to make a decision for this game. It's not finally done, yet. We will see what we do with him.
“It's clear that centre half is a position where you need to be tuned to the rest of the team, defending and stuff like that. But of course I can imagine that everyone is desperate to see him on the pitch. From our perspective there's no rush. It's much more important how many good games he can play for us, not when it starts.
“It's not decided. We have to wait until we get last updates for each position and make the decision then."
He confirmed his goalkeeper for tomorrow
“Loris will start, and I have to ask John Achterberg first, but yes, Wardy is sub. Simon has a little break. That's it.
“The plan for Wardy is the plan I speak about. Young, skilled goalkeeper, potential but space for improvement. That's it and we are quite desperate to work on that together with him, we would like to do that but we will have to see.
“All the requests for loans, everybody is doing like the season is finished.”
He spoke glowingly about Dominic Solanke
“Each game for Dom is very important, he was really busy, he ran I think 12.5km (against Burnley) so that's pretty rare for a striker. Quite lively.
“He will score, no shadow of a doubt, at this moment he gets experience. For a player like Dom, it's perfect, if he can play as much as possible that's really important.
And he discussed other injuries...
“Hendo and Alberto, the situation is not too cool but they are really on the way back. After Everton they can be part of team training, we will see what that means for the City game.
“Adam is now back a few weeks – it was perfect for him and brilliant for us. Mo and Phil are not big injuries to be honest, it's only a week, we were quite lucky. When I heard about the diagnosis and when they're back you think 'OK, that's lucky', usually when you get an injury at this time it's like 20 games.
“We cannot change that but so far it's OK. Always when you bring in players...Moreno played a fantastic season so far, Robbo had a hard time but he learnt a lot in this time, we always have a solution.”
