Liverpool Covid-19 outbreak was false positives, reveals Klopp
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has revealed that the Covid-19 outbreak that prompted the club to call off a match last week turned out to be the result of several false positives.
The club successfully requested a postponement of their Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Arsenal on Thursday, citing a “severe outbreak” of the virus.
But Klopp told media after Sunday’s FA Cup win over Shrewsbury Town that all but one of the cases turned out to be a false positive.
“We had last week what we thought was a proper outbreak and it showed up that we had a lot of false positives, actually,” said Klopp.
“But the rules are like they are so all these players who are false positives couldn’t play – or we decided not to play them.
“The only real positive case from the team was Trent Alexander-Arnold and all the rest were false positives.
“It was a really tough week. We had to close the training ground because until you realise it’s a false positive it takes two extra testing rounds.”
Liverpool on Tuesday petitioned Carabao Cup organisers the EFL to postpone their trip to Arsenal on the grounds that they did not have sufficient players, due to Covid-19, injury and players departing for the Africa Cup of Nations.
The EFL accepted the request on Wednesday after Liverpool closed their training ground and reported that assistant coach Pep Lijnders had followed Klopp in testing positive for the virus.
The game was rearranged so that the first leg will be this Thursday’s clash at Anfield and the game at Arsenal seven days later will complete the tie.
Liverpool came from behind to beat Shrewsbury 4-1 on Sunday, while Arsenal lost 1-0 at Nottingham Forest.