Jürgen Klopp is battling a mounting injury crisis before his first game in English football after Danny Ings became the second Liverpool player to suffer a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the space of 24 hours.
Having learnt that Joe Gomez is set to miss the rest of the season after damaging an ACL while on international duty with England Under-21, Klopp’s problems grew when he discovered that Ings is likely to be out for at least six months, having suffered a similar knee injury while attempting to turn away from a tackle during training with Liverpool on Wednesday.
Although Gomez’s injury is the worse of the two, the loss of Ings will probably be more keenly felt in the short term as it leaves Klopp with only two forwards, Daniel Sturridge and Divock Origi, available to face Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane tomorrow with Christian Benteke also set to be absent owing to a hamstring strain. Jordan Henderson’s ongoing recovery after foot surgery means that the new Liverpool manager will also be without his captain.
Klopp will now consider whether to enter the transfer market for reinforcements in January, but will first offer Roberto Firmino the chance to show that he can operate as a striker, although the Brazil midfielder is also unavailable at present after suffering a back injury in a Capital One Cup tie against Carlisle United last month.
“One of the things I learnt first, you do not think about the players who are not available at this moment because there is no chance to get lucky if you do this all of the time,” Klopp said. “For the next game we have Daniel for the position and we have Origi. Two strikers — I don’t need more. When you start, if you have more it’s perfect. But you have to think how you can react. When Christian is fit, then he is an option for sure, but at this moment he isn’t.”
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To add insult to their injuries, Liverpool remain frustrated that the severity of Gomez’s injury was discovered by their own medical staff only on Wednesday, the day after the defender sustained it during the latter stages of England Under-21’s 3-0 win over Kazakhstan.
Speaking immediately after the game, Gareth Southgate, the England Under-21 head coach, spoke of his hope that the problem would prove “nothing too serious”, having said that the 18-year-old “seems OK”.
Southgate contacted Gomez yesterday after learning that he, like Ings, will undergo surgery next week. Klopp, though, had already alluded to his own concerns about the situation by admitting to being perplexed at not being given what he described as “the perfect information” about Gomez’s injury by England.
The FA subsequently issued a statement from Southgate in which he told of his shock at Gomez’s plight.
“I’d like to express how disappointed we are for Joe and the club on hearing the news of his injury and, first and foremost, our thoughts and best wishes are with him,” he said. “All of us were shocked to learn the severity of Joe’s injury, not least given the symptoms displayed during the pitch assessment and on further examinations after the game. We took the immediate decision to substitute him following the incident so as not to take any risk.”
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For his part, Klopp had little option but to put on a brave face. Having called for doubters to become believers as he ushered in what he hopes will be a new era of positivity at Anfield, the former Borussia Dortmund coach could hardly bemoan his fate at the first sign of trouble.
But while he called on his players to have “more fun in their eyes”, the serious injuries suffered by two of them were already playing on his mind. This is not the start he had been looking for.
It is not just the number of players Klopp will be without and the length of time that they will be absent, it is their type. Along with Henderson, Ings and Gomez are among Liverpool’s most energetic players, the kind that Klopp anticipated playing significant roles in the “full-throttle” style of football, complete with hard running and high pressing, that he is looking to unleash.
Nevertheless, Klopp remains upbeat. Such setbacks, he maintains, are part and parcel of management. Not that he could say much else, having asked all at Liverpool to “believe”, of course, but the joie de vivre that he arrived with a week ago remains intact. Just being back among players, working with them on the training pitch at Melwood has left the 48-year-old in no doubt that he made the right decision to cut short his sabbatical.
“It’s perfect,” Klopp said. “I’ve had a really good time in these four months. The holidays were the best of my life because they were the longest of my life. The best moment this week until now was the first moment when I was back on the pitch. I have to cool down myself a little bit by not giving the players too much information because, unlike me, they have had no holidays.
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“To bring them together is one of the challenges I have for this moment, but yes, I feel good. The sport side of things is, until now, perfect. OK, the injuries are not good but we cannot change that. The rest is good. The staff, all the people working here are very kind and very nice people. They all want to help us. They have a big heart for LFC. It feels good to work here.”
The curse of the ACL strikes again
Aug 29: Tyrone Mings (Bournemouth, home to Leicester City). The left back, a club-record £8 million signing from Ipswich Town during the summer, sustained his injury six minutes into his debut having arrived as a half-time substitute. Mings hurt his knee when catching his leg in the ground after a collision with Danny Drinkwater.
Aug 29: Max Gradel (Bournemouth, home to Leicester). Bournemouth’s desperate luck continued when Gradel suffered his injury just ten minutes after Mings had left the field. A summer signing from Saint-Étienne, the midfielder fell after an apparently innocuous challenge by Ritchie de Laet, of Leicester City.
Sept 26: Callum Wilson (Bournemouth, away to Stoke). The former Coventry City forward made a hugely impressive start to the season, scoring five goals and prompting claims that he deserved an England call-up, but that optimism disappeared when he twisted his knee in a challenge with Philipp Wollscheid.
Oct 10: Tim Krul (Newcastle United, injured playing for Holland away to Kazakhstan). The goalkeeper had enjoyed a quiet night as his team headed for a comfortable victory but, ten minutes from the end, he fell awkwardly on the artificial pitch.
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Oct 13: Joe Gomez (Liverpool, injured playing for England Under-21 at home to Kazakhstan). The 18-year-old defender, who has made five league starts for Liverpool since joining from Charlton Athletic in the summer, was hurt in a seemingly harmless challenge.
Oct 14: Danny Ings (Liverpool, injured in training). On Monday the forward made his England debut against Lithuania but his fortunes changed while training two days later. Ings was able to walk after suffering the injury but a scan brought bad news.
Words by Bill Edgar