Jurgen Klopp is confident that Virgil van Dijk will banish the memories of his serious injury at Goodison Park when Liverpool face Everton on Wednesday.
The Merseyside derby trip across Stanley Park represents the first such meeting since the Dutch defender suffered a knee injury that ruled him out for the majority of last season.
Liverpool were furious with Jordan Pickford for his challenge on Van Dijk and Klopp intimated that he remains unhappy with the Everton goalkeeper escaping a red card last October, but the manager is now focused on three points in midweek.
"We are human beings so it is probably difficult to forget and ignore something like that of course, but the situation was a situation that can always happen in football,” Klopp told reporters.
"It is a situation which should not happen in football. It doesn't happen very often, I can't remember since then it happening in one game.
"It is unlucky when a player gets injured like that. It should have been dealt with differently but that's not important any more.
"But Virgil is very experienced and he has now these kind of situations constantly since he was back where he has always dealt with all these kind of things, where he has to be completely free of all things he could have in his mind because of one issue in the past.
"So yeah, it might be more different because it is the same place but apart from that it is just a football game."
Klopp also insisted that his side will not think of their previous visit to Goodison when the derby kicks off, with Thiago Alcantara also injured by Richarlison’s red-card challenge late in last season’s 2-2 draw.
"It was long ago,” he noted. "It is always important in football. We play football. We are still an emotional team but you have to use the emotion in the right way and that's the plan."
