Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that Joel Matip is facing a long-term stay on the sidelines, as the Cameroonian defender has had another scan.
The big centre half has been out for around a month, and the boss is refusing to put a timeline on the defender’s return – possibly fearing that rushing him back may risk further injury to one of his senior players.
With the latest injury to Fabinho, attention turns to our fixture list and just how we’ll cope. “It starts with my pure thoughts and then I get all the information on top of that. So many factors decide on who we will use and rotate,” he’s quoted as saying by the Mirror.
“It is the opponent, it is the system, the tactics and it all comes together. The data, medical? Oh yeah, of course, that is the information around that and talks with the boys, too.
“They say one thing and look like the other, ‘I’m ready…’ but then we have to see. I have no clue if we are more advanced in sports science, because I don’t know how the other clubs are.
“I hope we are not behind. It is important. We have two defensive players in Joel and Fabinho with long-term injuries.”
So it sounds like we won’t be seeing Joel any time soon – but, with the form of Dejan Lovren, it’s unlikely we’ll lose any sleep over that with our most difficult fixtures behind us for a while.
Matip’s injury, while unfortunate, may also provide Joe Gomez with some more chances to prove his worth to the squad – and reclaim some of that form he showed us throughout the early stages of last season when him and Virgil van Dijk looked impenetrable.
Hopefully this team of fighters can pull together and manage through a period in which fixtures are coming thick and fast, and we get to the other side of these injuries unscathed.