Trent alexander-arnold, liverpool’s vice-captain, has been out for “a few weeks” after suffering a knee injury in the fa cup victory over arsenal over the weekend. The right-back completed the full 90 minutes of reds’ 2-0 emirates victory, when arsenal defender jakub kiwior nodded in his 80th-minute free kick for the game’s only goal. Alexander-arnold was supposed to keep his place in wednesday’s efl cup semi-final first leg against fulham with joe gomez covering for the injured andrew robertson and kostas tsimikas on the left-hand side. After sunday’s game, there was no word of injury to jurgen klopp, but assistant manager pep lijnders announced on tuesday that alexander-arnold had joined the reds’ overflowing hospital. Lijnders confirmed that alexander-arnold had hyperextended his knee before his press conference, and that the defender will likely miss the remainder of january as the reds’ rearguard selection crisis exacerbates.
First and foremost, some not-so-good news: trent hyperextended his knee during the last game. He also has a small tear in his knee’s lateral ligament, which will take some time to heal. He underwent a biopsy and will be out for a few weeks, so let’s see what happens after that,” lijnders said. “he will get some rest and then hopefully return to where he was.” Because this guy was the one who made it possible for us to win all the games and gave the team a high degree of freedom. We will all miss him,” he said. Alexander-arnold will miss bournemouth (january 21) and chelsea (january 31), as well as an fa cup fourth-round match against norwich city or bristol rovers on january 27.
The england international’s availability against arsenal on february 4 is also uncertain, and unless liverpool pursues a new full-back in january, either conor bradley or luke chambers could have a long run in the first team. In brighter news, lijnders announced that virgil van dijk has made a complete recovery from the illness that kept him out of the gunners’ victory, adding: “virgil is back. virgil is back.” Yesterday, he made some good runs on the field, and he looked great again. He will be back in the squad if he hasn’t been bad. It also encouraged him not to fly to london. “however, robertson (shoulder) and tsimikas (collarbone) are still absent, and lijnders is hopeful that the two will return to team training by the end of the month, adding: “robbo is approaching the end of his life, so he will be examined by the surgeon.” “and if he does that scan and we see everything so that we can really progress him, he will go to dubai for a week to do proper volume sessions, proper sessions, so that will be beneficial for him.” Then we have the three-month-mark scan, and we can see how quickly he can come into contact again.
The same goes for kostas. Kostas is doing really well and really quickly. So, it’s hoped that robbo and kostas, both of whom are due to return to the team at the end of this month to train. Joel matip (acl), ben doak (knee), dominik szoboszlai (hamstring), thiago alcantara (hip), and stefan bajcetic (calf) will all miss the first leg, but lijnders confirmed that the latter two are also on track to resume full training in february. Without mohamed salah and wataru endo, the cottagers will also welcome liverpool to anfield, as they are away on africa cup of nations and asian cup duty respectively.
