Fulham manager Marco Silva has confirmed that two of his players won’t feature against Liverpool on Wednesday night due to season-ending injuries.
Andreas Pereira and Tim Ream were both forced off during the Cottagers’ defeat to Manchester City on Sunday, and neither will feature again for the rest of the campaign.
Speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of tomorrow’s clash at Anfield, the 45-year-old said (via fulhamfc.com): “Not good news. On Tim Ream, he has broken his arm and will be out until the end of the season. The situation of Andreas Pereira will be the same, he will not play anymore this season.
“We are waiting for more updates from the exams this morning, an MRI as well, and when we are going to be more sure about everything, we are going to give more feedback to you, but both are not going to play anymore this season.”
Silva added that Fulham will ‘assess’ the fitness of Willian in training today after he missed their last two games due to a hamstring problem.
The injuries to Ream and Pereira have deprived the Cottagers of the only two players to have started every Premier League match for them up to this point of the campaign (WhoScored), so their losses will no doubt be felt heavily.
The latter could be a particularly big miss, with his 10 top-flight goal contributions in 2022/23 the second highest total at Craven Cottage behind leading scorer Aleksandar Mitrovic (WhoScored).
The Serbian continues to serve an eight-match ban for pushing Chris Kavanagh during the FA Cup defeat to Manchester United in March (Sky Sports), and Fulham have lost four of their last six matches in his absence.
Willian’s potential omission could also be felt by Silva’s team, with the ex-Chelsea winger completing more dribbles per game than any of his teammates this season (1.4) and boasting the squad’s second highest rate for key passes (1.6 per match), as per WhoScored.
All of those players would be big absences for the Cottagers if they’re unable to feature against Liverpool, which in theory should make the Reds’ task simpler.
Nonetheless, it’s never nice to witness players missing through injury, and as football fans we always want to see the best exponents of the game on the pitch. We wish Pereira and Ream well in their recoveries from their respective season-ending setbacks.