Diogo Jota Doubtful for Watford

Diogo Jota returned to Merseyside before Portugal’s World Cup Qualifier against Luxembourg on Tuesday. The 24-year-old had not trained with the squad since being left out of a weekend friendly with Qatar due to a muscle injury. He is now a doubt for Liverpool FC’s Saturday trip to Watford.

The Portuguese Football Federation’s statement reads:

“Diogo Jota was dismissed by the national team manager Fernando Santos, after being considered unavailable by the FPF Health and Performance Unit to face Luxembourg, in a meeting to be held this Tuesday.”

“The Liverpool player, who has already left the stage of the national team, has done conditioning work since the beginning of the international break, having also missed the match against Qatar.”

Jota’s potential absence adds to Liverpool’s rather complicated squad situation. Brazilians Alisson and Fabinho will likely miss the game against Watford as well, due to Brazil’s World Cup Qualifier against Uruguay taking place just about 36 hours before that.

On the quarantine front, a recent removal of 47 different countries from the UK red list means that Sadio Mane and Kostas Tsimikas are now expected to not have to quarantine on their return to the UK from South Africa and Georgia where their national teams played.

However, Venezuela and Colombia are two of the seven remaining countries on the UK’s red list, meaning the Brazilian duo will still have to quarantine for 10 days upon return to the UK. Liverpool could circumvent this by sending them straight to Spain after their international duty to enable them to feature against Atletico Madrid.

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