During an interview for the Daily Mail, Jurgen Klopp has revealed that Joe Gomez’s knee injury while on England duty was as a result of fatigue.
As the BBC reported at the time of the incident, Gomez had to go under the knife to repair the damage done to his knee after going down unchallenged during England training.
With talisman Virgil Van Dijk already on the injury table in wake of Jordan Pickford’s horror challenge in the Merseyside Derby, it’s the last thing that Jurgen Klopp needed.
MORE: Jurgen Klopp speaks out about ‘very strange’ Jordan Pickford decision that left Liverpool star injured
The Liverpool manager is now quoted by the Daily Mail revealing his belief that Gomez’s injury came as a result of the number of games he has been playing of late:
“My English is not good enough to describe exactly what went through my mind. My head physio told me and everybody was sure it was serious immediately. No doubts. No hope it was only a little one. Injuries are part of the deal for players and managers. How they happen is something we are constantly worried about.”
“With Joey, it was absolutely because of the intensity of the season. That’s something we have to worry about. That’s not an excuse. That’s just an explanation.”
Klopp goes on to further his calls for the Premier League to reinstate the option for clubs to make up to five substitutes in order to prevent his kind of thing happening again, as the Daily Mail report:
“Before the season, some people thought it would be an advantage for us, the people who said we should stick to five substitutions. But it was never — and I can promise you this, I’m a Christian — it was not for one second about having an advantage. All the other countries did it. Italy — Juventus, Inter Milan, they have the biggest squads, but still the other clubs said, ‘We need five subs.’”
“Yesterday six managers changed their minds. We need it. For the players, not the clubs. December and January in a normal season is brutal. We know that. But this year, for the Champions League and Europa League clubs, October is like December. November is like December. December is still December, then January, then February.”
While some would argue that Gomez’s injury could be a freak incident not related to anything in particular, as knee injuries of that kind often are, it’s getting hard to argue against calls for the return of five subs.
We ought to be doing everything in our power to protect the players in a season like no other, and can we really say that we are doing that after reverting back to the usual three?