Liverpool’s injury problems grew before Sunday’s 3-0 home defeat to Manchester City. The squad now has little time to recover before its next game in Europe.
Ryan Gravenberch was sent off in the 62nd minute for a second yellow card, and the game changed. Erling Haaland, Jeremy Doku and Rayan Cherki scored for City, with three goals in 13 minutes.
Liverpool now travel to Austria for the Champions League. They play LASK at the Raiffeisen Arena on Wednesday.
Head coach Andoni Iraola has several injury problems to manage. His comments after the City game gave little encouragement.
Dominik Szoboszlai was only confirmed as absent when the team sheet came out. He joined Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo on the injury list.
Gakpo hurt his ankle playing for the Netherlands against Serbia, while Isak suffered a minor thigh injury on Sweden duty against Romania.
Isak had scored four goals in Liverpool’s first five league games. Hugo Ekitike, Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni were also unavailable.
Iraola told Sky Sports before the game that Szoboszlai had felt a tight hamstring.
After the match, he explained what happened: “Dom came from the national team with tightness, an overload. We put him as a floater in the training and tried to protect him but he was feeling something very small.”
The short gap to the LASK game is the problem. Iraola said:
“It’s true that now we play four games in 10 days, so it’s going to be difficult because we fly to Austria in two days. I think it’s going to be difficult to recover any of the players.”
“It’ll be difficult because it’s two days.”
“You never know.”
Liverpool were short of options up front against City. Lewis Koumas led the attack in the absence of Isak and Gakpo.
Iraola said afterwards that Liverpool were the better team until the red card and criticised referee Chris Kavanagh’s decision.
Liverpool have another eight games before the November international break.
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