Philip Coutinho left Brazil after international duty, got on a private plane to return home and started smiling.
He walked into training today smiling, joked around with Alberto Moreno (who handed him the news he was now LFC's first choice left back) and the smiling continued.
Whatever the fall out from his written transfer request, back injury, tears in Brazil and ultimately his lack of movement to Barcelona - the Liverpool manager is keeping things behind closed doors. He defended the player.
“I know what people think but Phil had a back problem a few weeks ago and couldn't train. He missed about 3 weeks of training.”
Klopp is used to his star players leaving at the end of every season and him refashioning his side at Dortmund - but Liverpool's refusal to budge presents not only the club but the manager with some fresh thinking to do.
The Liverpool boss backed his player and insisted that while he was training and playing for Brazil he is still not ready to face Manchester City - principally because he needs to be ready for the tough 7 games ahead.
When asked about Coutinho's trip to Brazil, Jurgen said:
“Yes he went away with the national team and trained normally but now we have to prepare for a normal season.
We have 7 games and we saw training this morning and thought ‘OK maybe we should use him immediately’ because he was really good, but that doesn’t make any sense
We have to continue like it's pre-season, not too long, but in a few sessions we have to give ourselves the tim. In the next month we have seven games.
"He showed up in a very, very good mood and looks really promising.