Liverpool will be sweating on the fitness of another centre-back, Rhys Williams, who was left out of the England U21 side as a precaution on Tuesday night.
The Young Lions didn’t need the defender in their 5-0 thrashing of Albania, but the Premier League champions could well do as they host high-flying Leicester on Sunday night.
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Jurgen Klopp is already without first-choice pairing Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez for a significant part of the season, leaving Joel Matip as his only senior centre-back.
Fabinho has been used in defence, but the midfielder is also nursing a minor injury problem, and even if Klopp was tempted to use Jordan Henderson at the back, the Reds skipper also got injured on England duty making him a doubt for Sunday’s game.
All that means Williams, 19, has gone from Liverpool’s reserves to one of their most important players – although it looks like the injury curse might have struck him too.
In yet another potential blow to Liverpool, it was revealed the Englishman has a minor knock and was being rested for the Albania match on Tuesday as a ‘precautionary measure’.
Speaking after Liverpool’s 1-1 draw with Man City prior to the international break – the match in which Trent Alexander-Arnold suffered an injury – Klopp hit out at the intense fixture schedule this season.
“Hopefully we can play the Euros next summer but if we continue like this let’s see which players can be part of that,” said Klopp. “Trent will be out for England [for the three games].
“What injury he has we don’t know but he cannot play for England and he is not the first and will not be the last that Gareth Southgate will miss. He’ll have a scan, then we will see.
“We played [last month] after the international break at 12.30pm on Saturday at Everton. Some of my players were coming back from Peru. These kind of things should not happen.
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“I spoke about two weeks ago – in a meeting with the person responsible at the Premier League who organised the fixtures. We cannot change it [I was told]. It is not about Manchester United, Liverpool and City.
“Usually in the season we all have a [hectic] November and December. This year the October is like a December, the November is like a November and the December is still like a December.
“The 12.30pm game – that is a killer. If the Tuesday [Champions League playing] teams are in contention for the Saturday 12.30 that is OK. But the Wednesday teams should not be.”
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