Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp is looking forward to the return of his “difference-maker” Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
The England international is poised to make his first appearance in a matchday squad at Fulham on Sunday for the first time after a knee injury in pre-season.
It will be the 27-year-old’s second comeback from a knee problem, although it is not even close to first time around when he was sidelined for 366 days after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament, rupturing his lateral collateral ligament, damaging his medial ligament and tearing a hamstring tendon off the bone in a tackle during a Champions League semi-final.
“He is just a very positive person, very optimistic person. In a moment when Ox joins parts of team training again, everybody gets the benefit of that. That’s the way he is,” Klopp added.
“You don’t know that you are missing him because he is not there for a long time and then the moment he comes in and is in the gym with the players they say ‘OK, right…it’s much better when he is here’. That’s Ox.
“In the first few weeks the boys get all the help they need, but then, especially with Ox, he is the energy-giver, he doesn’t need too much energy from other people.”
