Lucas Leiva: I'm fit, it's just about playing time now
Lucas Leiva hopes to work his way back to full match fitness during the upcoming international break after playing for Liverpool's U23s on Friday night.
The Brazilian, who had been out for five weeks with a hamstring problem, started at centre-back for Michael Beale’s team against Arsenal and looked comfortable throughout the first half, with the young Reds going into the break two goals to the good thanks to Ben Woodburn’s double.
Beale’s side eventually ran out 3-1 winners at Emirates Stadium, picking up a morale-boosting three points following back-to-back 4-1 defeats by Southampton and Chelsea.
Lucas was thrilled to get 45 minutes under his belt and expects to be ready to return to first-team duty when the Reds host Leicester City on Saturday September 10.
“I’ve been training for about 10 days already with the team but the manager [Jürgen Klopp] felt it was a good chance for me to get some minutes,” he told Liverpoolfc.com.
“Of course, there is an international break where I can have some more training and hopefully get back to 100 per cent.
“I’m fit, it’s just about playing time now. Of course, I missed some of the pre-season but I wasn’t out for too long so I didn’t miss much fitness-wise.
“Now it’s about game time and hopefully I’ll get that. We have two weeks where you can work a lot and have some behind-closed-doors games.”
Lucas also had words of praise for the U23s’ performance at the Emirates.
“[It was] very good tonight after two defeats, very important for them to get their first win of the season. We had a very strong line-up,” the No.21 added.
“I always tried to help but they showed a lot of intensity and did what the manager asked.”