Liverpool has been a long way from being injury-free this season. But despite January being the worst-hit period in terms of numbers out, Jürgen Klopp steered his side through more or less unscathed.
Light was becoming clearer at the end of the tunnel by the time that Klopp took his side to the Emirates at the weekend. Thiago was an exciting returnee, Trent Alexander-Arnold was fit to start, while Wataru Endō — not injured, but away at the Asian Cup — had been knocked out with Japan ahead of kick-off in London, so Liverpool knew his return was imminent.
This, of course, was a fixture where Liverpool stumbled. Despite all the positives on the injury front, it was the absence of Dominik Szoboszlai that hit hardest, with Ryan Gravenberch unable to live up to the billing as he deputized. He was hooked early in the second half, but Harvey Elliott fared little better.
It would be wrong to declare Szoboszlai the one truly irreplaceable piece in this Liverpool side. After all, Klopp has engineered the last few results without the Hungarian, including away to Arsenal in the FA Cup. But there is a sense that the manager’s ‘luck’ has run out.
Klopp declared before the Arsenal match that Liverpool had been lucky in a sense with injuries this season. Though there have been plenty of setbacks, they have mostly been timed in such a way that an able back-up has been ready to step up — Alexis Mac Allister returned from injury just as Endō left, for example, while Conor Bradley was not long back when Alexander-Arnold succumbed to a spell on the sidelines.
Losing both Andy Robertson and Kostas Tsimikas does not really fit this pattern, although Klopp will be hugely grateful that Joe Gomez has been able to handle a much-increased workload, making the situation just about tenable. But amid reports from Hungary, via Index, that Szoboszlai is facing a spell out, who is the next man up in that area of the pitch?
It’s important to stress that a timeline of seven or eight games, via the Mirror, is a worst-case scenario. Ben Bocsak has reported that the injury is not as serious, although Liverpool will manage it carefully.
But assuming Szoboszlai is missing for a while longer, Liverpool’s conveyor belt of natural replacements might falter slightly. While Gravenberch is an obvious candidate on paper, he showed against Arsenal that he doesn’t quite cut it just yet in the biggest games. Fortunately, Klopp has a plan. In fact, he’s had one for months.
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When Liverpool signed Mac Allister early in the summer, the idea was almost certainly to play him as a number eight. At that point, the midfield rebuild was only about re-energizing the engine room, effectively finding someone to play the role that Jordan Henderson had been performing. But when the captain and Fabinho left, and Thiago and Stefan Bajčetić ended up sidelined for months, the World Cup winner became the solution as a number six.
He’s done so well that it will now be hard for Klopp to move him. But in the worst-case injury scenario with Szoboszlai, shifting him up the field might be the perfect solution. It’s far too early to write off Gravenberch, but Liverpool can’t afford to give him too many chances in an intense title run-in. Mac Allister has proven himself time and time again.
And perhaps Klopp’s luck is still in after all. The return of Endō, who had hit top form before departing for the Asian Cup, creates a natural route to move Mac Allister further up the pitch.
Hopefully, this all proves to be a moot point, and Szoboszlai is back in no time. But even then, this scare should be a reminder that his game time needs to be managed, and Klopp could soon experiment with a duo he has not had before: Endō and Mac Allister, both fit and in form at the same time. That could unleash the plan he has had for months.
