Darwin Núñez, Thiago, Luis DÃaz, Diogo Jota, Naby Keita, Ibou Konate, Joel Matip and Arthur Melo. All potential headlines. All injured.
So far this season, in which there are just 11 Premier League games, Liverpool have had 19 separate injuries. The only first-team players guaranteed not to have missed a game are Alisson, Virgil van Dijk and Mo Salah.
When will we stop assuming this is just bad luck?
Right now, there is no club doctor working at Liverpool. They haven’t replaced Jim Moxon yet. Weird. Andreas Schlumberger, Liverpool’s head of recovery and performance, has also taken on more work, but despite the ridiculous injury list, there is no internal rush to bring in new specialists.
Something is wrong with the training load, the recovery or maybe the programming. Why would we go on tour to Asia a few weeks after playing every possible match in the 2021/22 season? It would not have been the ideal preparation for Jurgen Klopp, right?
What is happening with the position of club doctor? Why have there been more changes in that job than even in the role of Prime Minister? What happened in the preseason? Are there any problems with the training and recovery programs? Are journalists the ones petrified to ask these questions?
— Mo Chatra (@MoChatra) October 22, 2022
Liverpool’s problems this season aren’t just down to players who aren’t fit, of course. In our first game of the season, we started with Fabinho, Thiago and Jordan Henderson, the supposedly first-choice midfield, and we were atrocious in midfield against Fulham.
Mo Salah has often been isolated and does not get close enough to the opposing goal. Trent Alexander-Arnold has been dire defensively and Virgil van Dijk has been uncommitted. The players fought like lions in two games against Manchester City, one in the Community Shield and one in the Premier League, winning both, but frankly they haven’t looked for it in the easier ones. Easier ones in which we ended up losing points, against Brighton, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest.
There is a lack of signing and a loyalty to players who should have been moved earlier, and combined with the mental and physical effects of being so close to a quadruple last term, only to suffer what happened in Paris, it has taken its toll.
It’s not just the injuries, but you’d still think a Liverpool team, even close to full strength, would have had the quality to put Forest through the sword… But with James Milner at right-back, and a double pivot by Fabinho-Curtis Jones, with young Harvey Elliott and Fabio Carvalho on the wings, we were lifeless.
Hopefully there is a serious internal investigation being carried out into our series of muscle injuries and how to prevent them in the future. It’s not just bad luck. Not at this point. Seven years of running and fighting for Klopp could also be taking its toll, of course.
As fans, we must continue to support them. They’ve done it all for us, she remembers. And they need our help now more than ever.
