Norwich City vs Liverpool team news: Steven Naismith and Ivo Pinto in line to make debut

Steven Naismith and Ivo Pinto are both in line to make their Norwich City debuts against Liverpool on Saturday (23 January) says manager Alex Neil. The Canaries completed the signing of Scotland international Naismith from Everton on Tuesday 19 January for a reported fee of £8.5m ($12.2m). He joined Portuguese full-back Pinto, who arrived for an undisclosed fee from Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb.

Despite a recent ankle problem, Neil believes Naismith is ready to come straight into the first team, having also been impressed with Pinto's immediate impact in training.

Switzerland international Timm Klose is the club's third signing of the January window, but the centre-half is not a certainty to make his debut against Jurgen Klopp's side, with Neil still to make a decision on his fitness.

"We'll need to be careful about putting too many new players into the team at one time," Neil said at a press conference.

"Steven is used to playing in the Premier League so I don't think his transition is going to be too much of a problem. Timm hasn't trained for a couple of days, so I'll need to bear that in mind when I'm selecting the team. Ivo is now at the stage where he looks as though he's ready to be involved. He'll be involved in the squad."

Having trained with the club this week, Naismith has shaken off an ankle injury and feels he is ready to make an instant impact.

"I've had a thing that's going on for a couple of months but I just wanted to make sure it was right," Naismith said, the Eastern Daily Press report.

"I was meant to be training at Everton on Monday but things changed, I trained down here Wednesday when everything was finalised and I'm raring to go."

Norwich have a clean bill of health for the visit of Liverpool with Gary O'Neil, serving the second of his three-match ban, and Andre Wisdom, ineligible to play against his parent club, the only absentees.