There was a moment during the January transfer window encapsulating the inevitability of Adam Lallana making a late dash into Liverpool’s title bid. Word spread around Melwood that the midfielder was being linked with a loan move to Turkish side Fenerbahce. Nobody was more incredulous about the suggestion than Jurgen Klopp, who thought it a joke before determining it a discourteous misjudgment of Lallana’s class and wanting it known publicly he was certain the midfielder would be reintegrated into his starting line-up.

“His attitude was always incredible so why should I doubt him?” said the Liverpool manager when asked yesterday about this unyielding faith. “Only the football world outside makes a player old too early. I don’t think like that.”

Those unfamiliar with or underestimating Klopp’s regard for Lallana have found this surprising given the 30-year-old’s injury problems.

“Dark days” as Klopp described them, including visits to Qatar’s Aspire clinic going back to October 2017 in an effort to cure incessant niggles rather than career-threatening setbacks.

Over the past two years there have been thigh, calf, hamstring and groin issues. At Fulham two weeks ago, Lallana made his sixth Premier League start in two years – although it is equally telling he is still responsible for creating 16 chances in just 700 minutes of football over that period.

Lallana has suffered from injuries over the past two years, but returned this month for Liverpool credit: Getty Images

While Lallana recovered, Liverpool bought attacking midfielder Xherdan Shaqiri and Naby Keita, and almost added Nabil Fekir. There was a misconception that even when fit Lallana’s days as a first pick at Anfield were gone.

In fact, he was expected to start the season in Liverpool’s starting XI but for another setback before the penultimate warm-up game in August.

The hope for Lallana and Klopp is the turning point came at the start of this month, when the coach issued a challenge to his midfielders to stake their claim ahead of the Premier League win over Burnley.

“We had a full week to train for that game and Adam was the standout player in training that week, so go for it,” said Klopp. “Every player has to know that we watch and judge training. And if possible we show that. We saw it. A player with the ability and skills of Adam Lallana is a pure joy to watch when the fitness level is increasing and he is back on the pitch.

“It is clicking for him again. Adam is in a wonderful age group and when he is fit he is a fantastic player. That is the only thing I was waiting for. You cannot force that. You can only appreciate it when he is back and he showed that against Burnley.”

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Liverpool’s physiotherapists see similarities in Lallana’s situation to that of Kevin De Bruyne at Manchester City, where the timing as much as seriousness of injuries has made them so infuriating.

“At clubs like Liverpool and Manchester City, especially in a season such as this where the team is winning most weeks, it is not so simple as getting fit and getting back into the side,” said a friend of Lallana. “You have to wait and earn the shirt. It is not like other clubs where you can play your way back to full sharpness by easing back into Premier League games.”

Klopp has a long memory, recalling the player who most quickly grasped his methods in the first transitional months of his reign in 2015. Gareth Southgate, the England manager, will be studying progress over the climax of the season, too, enthused by the form shown on his latest comeback. Lallana was England’s player of the year in 2016, but has been limited to five international appearances since.

Had Lallana been available in January, the anticipation is Tottenham’s Mauricio Pochettino – the former mentor he meets tomorrow – would have been first on the phone.

Inevitably, there will be caution amid the current optimism, but the competition for a starting position in midfield has intensified with Lallana’s re-emergence.

“We helped Adam with normality and just not making it bigger than it is,” said Klopp. “If a player is injured it is never good. When they come back, like with Joe Gomez this week, it is like Christmas, their birthday, everything in his face.

“When there are setbacks you are like, ‘Come on, there will be better times’.”