The 24-year-old, due to be sidelined for between seven to nine months, suffered cartilage damage in his right knee while making a tackle late on in the League Cup victory over Tottenham at Anfield in October.
It was the first time in over a year that he was able to run out for the first team on Merseyside having sustained a partial anterior cruciate ligament rupture in his left knee last October.
Klopp admitted that the news of Ings, who is a popular figure in the dressing room, facing a second spell on the sidelines had devastated his team-mates but insists Liverpool are prepared to wait for him as he plots another comeback.
“It’s not negative; it’s not a nice story of course, it’s the complete opposite, but it’s an important story,” the manager said at Melwood. “Everybody who knows Ingsy likes him, I’ve never heard something bad about him.
“The only problem he had is that he had a really bad injury and he needed time to come back in shape. In the last two weeks everybody could see, ‘OK, now he’s back’ and then this happened.
“It’s not nice, but it is part of football and from yesterday onwards, it is already a positive story because the surgery was very positive and the rehab has started already.
“It’s a moment when the club and the team really has to show how strong we are and we will wait for him. We will give him all the time he needs and then he will be back again and will be a Liverpool player, 100 per cent. That’s the only thing we are working on from this moment on.
“The team reacted like everybody would react when something bad happens to a friend, but meanwhile we want to show that we involve [him], of course. It’s not for public or something, but of course we involve this [when speaking to the team].
“He was very, very close in the last few weeks to the team; he’d already helped us and in each session he helped us on his way back into his best shape. Everything will be good at the end but now it’s time to work on the comeback.”
