A report shared by The Athletic has revealed the worrying extent of the injury problems suffered by Liverpool players last season.
The outlet reported findings from the trusted Premier Injuries website run by Ben Dinnery to contextualise the body blows incurred by each of the 20 top-flight clubs during the 2022/23 campaign, with Jurgen Klopp’s side among the most affected.
The Reds had the fourth-most individual injuries in the league (36) and were third-highest in terms of the total number of games missed by players through injury (184) and the total number of days missed (1,574).
Hamstring injuries were also an alarming recurrence at Anfield, with 10 such instances recorded – only Chelsea (13) and Leicester (11) had more.
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While many football fans may perceive their own club to suffer more from injuries than their rivals, in Liverpool’s case such laments are justified by the numbers above.
As per Transfermarkt, no fewer than 18 Reds players picked up knocks of varying lengths last season, with several of these being long-term absences.
Luis Diaz was sidelined for six months from October until April, while Diogo Jota missed out on playing in the World Cup and also sat out matches either side of the break for that tournament.
Calvin Ramsay and Stefan Bajcetic both saw their campaign curtailed prematurely in early spring, while the likes of Thiago, Naby Keita, Ibrahima Konate and Darwin Nunez had multiple spells out of action.
Most notably, Arthur Melo never got to even play a top-flight match, chiefly because of a four-month layoff due to surgery.
As in 2020/21, at times Klopp was left with a threadbare squad, a scenario he’ll be desperate to avoid next season when Europa League commitments will see regular Thursday-Sunday scheduling in the autumn at least, potentially into 2024 if we progress deep into that tournament.
Whether it’s down to potential scope for improvement on injury management, or pure and utter bad luck, is a matter for debate; but what’s unquestionable is that in 2023/24 Liverpool can ill afford a repeat of the fitness woes which so clearly affected us last term.
A lot of the injuries as described above were pretty unpredictable. Arthur Melo arrived with niggles. Bajcetic and Jones are young fringe players and Luis Diaz’s impact injury can hit any player at any time.
The remainder, I suspect, may have been as a consequence of the excesses of the previous season where we nearly won the lot, but had to play a huge amount of football to do that. It was been a bit different this off season. We played less football towards then end of the season and many of the players are going to be better rested. Hopefully, we can get a bit more luck with injuries next season, if we do, we should be well placed to challenge. YNWA.