Andoni Iraola has provided updates on the injury blows which forced Dominik Szoboszlai and Jeremie Frimpong off the pitch during Liverpool’s 2-1 victory at Brentford on Saturday.
The Hungary midfielder came back into the starting line-up this afternoon, having missed the games against Manchester City and LASK earlier this week, but he was forced off just past the half-hour mark at the Gtech Community Stadium to be replaced by Trey Nyoni.
The Dutch right-back came on for Ronald Araujo at half-time but lasted a mere seven minutes before he pulled up, with the Reds’ head coach then turning to Rio Ngumoha with his team trailing 1-0 at the time.
Iraola provides post-match injury updates
Speaking to Sky Sports shortly after the final whistle (via BBC Sport), Iraola was pressed for updates on Szoboszlai and Frimpong after their respective afternoons ended prematurely.
The Liverpool boss said of the Hungarian midfielder: “He has tried, he has trained the last days, but we didn’t know the minutes he’d have. It’s not another injury. He’s still not healed.”
The Basque then said of the Reds’ number 30: “He finished cramping the other day in the Champions League so we knew he wouldn’t start the game.
“We were playing against 10 and I thought he was going to give us more going forwards, but he felt straight away something in the muscle.”
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Mixed news on Szoboszlai and Frimpong, it seems
It seems to be a mixture of good and bad from Iraola on the stricken duo, with Szoboszlai’s withdrawal seemingly pertaining to the hamstring issue which sidelined him earlier in the week but Frimpong appearing to have suffered a muscle injury.
Once again, Liverpool have just three days between fixtures, with their next assignment seeing them host Villarreal in the Champions League on Tuesday night – not much time to recover at all for those carrying even minor issues.
We’d imagine that the Hungarian won’t be risked from the start in that game if he was rushed back for today’s match and lasted just over half an hour. At least we then have a five-day gap to our subsequent fixture at home to Brighton.
However, the early indications are that Frimpong – who broke down with hamstring problems several times last season – could miss a few matches, especially with the Reds having such a condensed calendar (six more games in the next 22 days).
We’ll have to wait and see over the next 48 hours or so how the stricken pair are faring after their enforced withdrawals today. Fingers crossed for good news on both players when Iraola holds his pre-Villarreal press conference on Monday.