It has been revealed by Jurgen Klopp that he does not know when Alexis Mac Allister will be able to play again. The midfielder for Liverpool has sustained an injury that the manager has never seen before.

Last week, Mac Allister sustained a cut on his knee when playing Sheffield United. He was eventually forced to leave the game at Bramall Lane before the hour had passed.

The 24-year-old did not play in Liverpool’s Europa League group-stage match against Union Saint-Gilloise, a dead rubber since the Reds are already qualified as group champions. He also did not play in the team’s victory against Crystal Palace.

Although first it didn’t seem like a big deal, the Liverpool manager provided a more depressing update during his pre-game press conference on Wednesday.

“It’s a bit more tricky than we thought at the first moment,” Klopp said.

“The other boy stepped on his knee and the stud went through pretty much the muscle on to the bone. Now, we have to wait until the bone is healed and until Macca can deal with the pain, because it is pretty painful.

“Macca is actually a super-tough guy so we have probably to make sure just from an infection point of view nothing happens. That’s really important.”

For their encounter on Thursday night, Liverpool has sent a small team to Belgium; Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, and Mohamed Salah are the players who have been left behind.

But even though those players should be back in the lineup when Liverpool plays Manchester United in the Premier League on Sunday, Klopp has stated that Mac Allister won’t be playing at Anfield.

“I never had this injury for one of my players before but now we have it,” the Liverpool boss continued.

“I hope it will not take that long, I would like to say it’s day by day – but that would look like he could maybe play the next game but he will not be ready for that as well.

“I hope the next three or four days he makes big steps and then we will see.”