Liverpool have been handed a worrying injury blow during the international break before any of their players have even taken to the pitch for their countries.
Although the Reds’ overall record in that regard has greatly improved from last season to this, Arne Slot has still had to contend with quite a few notable absences during his first year in English football, with Alisson Becker, Diogo Jota, Ibrahima Konate, Joe Gomez, Conor Bradley and Trent Alexander-Arnold having all had lengthy spells on the sidelines.
The Premier League leaders now have another concern on their plate after some unwelcome news emerged on Wednesday night.
Gravenberch leaves Netherlands squad due to injury
Just afer 9pm, the official X channel of the Netherlands national team revealed that Ryan Gravenberch has left the Oranje’s training camp as he continues to feel the effects from an injury he sustained in Liverpool’s Carabao Cup final defeat to Newcastle last Sunday.
Although the Reds midfielder had trained with Ronald Koeman’s squad earlier in the week, the knock that he picked up at Wembley has now precluded him from partaking in their two-legged UEFA Nations League quarter-final against Spain, with the first instalment of that tie being played tonight.
LFC’s official website stated that the 22-year-old will be assessed upon his return to Merseyside to determine whether he’ll recover in time to face Everton in 13 days’ time.
Hopefully he’ll shake off injury worry for Merseyside derby
While the full nature of Gravenberch’s injury has yet to be made clear, Slot will be praying that it doesn’t exclude the midfielder from a large chunk of Liverpool’s run-in to the season as they seek to close out the Premier League title race.
The hope is that it might be primarily fatigue-related, with the former Ajax youngster having already racked up 3,516 minutes this term (third-most of any Reds player). In our last eight matches since the Goodison Park derby in mid-February, he’s played at least 74 minutes on every occasion.
The silver lining is that LFC don’t play against for nearly another two weeks, an unusually generous timeframe from an international break which’ll hopefully give the 22-year-old ample recovery time.
Also, having left the Netherlands squad before their two games against Spain, he won’t have aggravated the issue which saw him substituted at Wembley with just over a quarter of an hour remaining.
Fingers crossed that the injury worry which has prompted Gravenberch’s premature return to Merseyside is a minor one and that he’ll be good to go for the derby at Anfield at the beginning of April.
