Liverpool Defender On Track To Make Full Recovery From Injury

Liverpool defender Sebastian Coates harbours hopes to playing in next summer's World Cup finals with Uruguay as he contines to recover from a season-ending knee injury.

Coates suffered an anterior cruciate knee ligament injury while on international duty in August and having not played a minute for the Reds this season is expected to miss the remainder of the campaign.

The 23 year old was signed by Kenny Dalglish in the summer of 2011 and has since been a fringe player for Liverpool, featuring just 12 times during their 2012-13 campaign under Brendan Rodgers.

But the centre-back insists he's on track to make a return and fight for his place.

Coates told Liverpoolfc.com: "I'm making progress slowly but surely. It's an injury that takes a long time this one, and you have to work hard on a day-to-day basis to recover, but fortunately that's what I'm doing and so I hope to come back fit and well just as soon as I can.

"It's been going very well. As I said, it's a long recovery process for this injury and I think it's more about how you are psychologically in your head and trying to keep positive in order to be able to get back to full fitness as quickly as possible.

"You always think positively, I think that's the most important thing. In my case, I keep myself going by focusing on getting back as quickly as I can, and with the national team, the World Cup is another goal to help me with my recovery."

Finding a place in Rodgers' squad will be particularly difficult after the manager brought in four defenders over the summer.

The manager is yet to show much faith in Luis Suarez's international teammate and he will certainly have a lot of work to do if he hopes to receive regular game time in preparation for the World Cup in the summer of 2014.