Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has confirmed today that star defender Virgil Van Dijk will be sidelined for more than a month after suffering an injury during the 3-1 defeat to Brentford.
Their awful first half performance saw Klopp make three changes at half-time with Van Dijk, Tsimikas and Harvey Elliott all taken off at the break.
But Klopp has since then confirmed that taking off the Dutchman was precautionary as they did not want to ‘take any risk’ with his hamstring problem which did not seem as serious at that time.
However, unfortunately for Liverpool, the injury has since then turned out to be much more serious than first anticipated and the Dutch centre-back is now set to miss out at least a month of football.
Speaking ahead of their FA Cup tie against Wolves, Klopp said:
‘Virgil was a surprise to us. It was a big blow. He didn’t feel a lot. I took him off, it was not clear that maybe he would have tried [to play on].
‘The diagnosis was pretty harsh. We talk about weeks, more than a month but I hope it goes quick. I hope it goes quick, we’ll have to see. For now he’s not available, that’s how it is and we have other centre-halves.
‘Everything is okay for the team but for Virgil it’s hard for him. He’s played an incredible amount of games over the years. We cannot use him on the pitch but off the pitch we will do that.’
Van Dijk’s injury adds to Klopp’s list of injury concerns, which already includes Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Arthur Melo, James Milner, and Roberto Firmino.
Liverpool are really struggling this season and the Van Dijk setback is expected to make it even more challenging for Klopp to bounce back with a run of form that will help them finish top 4.