Liverpool have suffered from injury problems among not only the senior first-team regulars this season
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot
Liverpool head coach Arne Slot(Image: Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
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Arne Slot has long bemoaned the lack of consistency as the reason his team are left facing an uphill battle to secure a top-four Premier League finish this season. But there's one aspect where Liverpool have been depressingly regular since lifting a record-equalling 20th championship last May.
Wataru Endo became the latest Reds player to be struck by injury when suffering a serious foot problem during the hard-fought 1-0 win at Sunderland last Wednesday.
The versatile Japan international joins striker Alexander Isak and defenders Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni as a long-term absentee, although Slot is hopeful Endo will be back available before the end of the season.
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Of course, injuries are commonplace with few players managing to get through an entire campaign unscathed.
But with Liverpool having taken a conscious decision to work with a relatively small squad compared to their main Premier League rivals this season, that so many players have been ruled out for lengthy periods - both Alisson Becker and Jeremie Frimpong have also had spells missing for at least six weeks at a time - has exposed another issue with which Slot has had to contend.
The injury problems have extended to a raft of leading Academy players who may otherwise have been options to help occasionally ease the burden on the senior players along with first-team squad regulars 18-year-old Trey Nyoni and 17-year-old Rio Ngumoha.
Jayden Danns is the most obvious example. The 19-year-old striker scored for Slot in the FA Cup last season and started the Champions League dead rubber at PSV Eindhoven, and had returned to fitness following a back problem to come off the bench in the League Cup win over Southampton in September.
Four days later, though, Danns suffered a major hamstring injury while playing for the under-21s at Ipswich Town and has yet to return to full training, although he is back working on the grass and understood close to being given the green light to step up his rehabilitation.
“Jayden, if he would have been fit he would definitely have been in the squad," said Slot last month. "He will fight back and come back and the world will get to know him the moment he’s fit again.”
But there are more. Stefan Bajcetic, who is now approaching two years since his most recent Liverpool appearance, is another yet to resume full training after a number of minor setbacks in his recovery from a hamstring operation last May towards the end of his loan spell at Spanish side Las Palmas.
A succession of injury problems have meant the 21-year-old midfielder has only 55 senior appearances - 22 of them at Liverpool - since making his first-team debut in August 2022.
Other fitness issues have robbed Slot of potential options and youngsters a chance to develop on loan.
Kaide Gordon, the 21-year-old winger who made his Liverpool bow back in September 2021, featured from the bench in the League Cup loss to Crystal Palace in October but tore his meniscus in December and continues to be sidelined.
James McConnell, the 21-year-old midfielder who earned the praise of Slot last year, was spending the season at Ajax before the sacking of former Reds assistant coach John Heitinga as boss and a shoulder injury curtailed his stay. The need for surgery to repair the damage scuppered any chance of another loan move being agreed during the recent transfer window.
Wellity Lucky is out with a hamstring injury having made his senior debut as substitute against Palace in October. The 20-year-old centre-back was particularly missed in the UEFA Youth League earlier this month having previously helped Liverpool keep clean sheets in all three games in the competition in which he played.
And Will Wright, the 17-year-old striker summer signing from Salford City, sustained a knee injury in September from which he only returned last month.
The increase in overall standards in the Liverpool first team over the last decade makes it more difficult than ever for players to make the step up from the Academy.
But that so many of the more highly-rated youngsters have missed huge swathes of the season has made already difficult matters that little bit more testing for Slot.
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