When it rains, it pours at Liverpool FC, in regards to injuries. This time it’s the team captain Jordan Henderson, who was subbed off in the 29′ of Liverpool’s 2-0 loss to Everton in the Merseyside derby today.
Manager Jurgen Klopp says it “doesn’t look like a small one” when speaking about Henderson’s apparent groin injury to television after the match. Obviously, we won’t know more about a recovery timeline until a diagnostic test, or two, is done.
We must await the results of a scan to determine the severity of the injury sustained by @JHenderson today.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 20, 2021
Klopp went on to say in his post-match press conference: “It’s the groin/adductor region and nobody in the medical department was positive about it.
“It doesn’t look good, but we have to wait, of course, for the scan tomorrow, hopefully.”
Jordan Henderson is just the latest in a long line of injuries to strike the Merseyside club at the centreback position. And when we say centreback, we also mean midfielders that were converted to central defenders in order to plug the holes at the position.
In case you’re scoring at home:
Liverpool now have 5 centre-backs / makeshift centre-backs out injured:
? Virgil van Dijk
? Joel Matip
? Joe Gomez
? Fabinho
? Jordan HendersonThe curse strikes again. ? pic.twitter.com/t5indbGVSV
— Statman Dave (@StatmanDave) February 20, 2021
Liverpool lost a lot today, starting with their skipper, for what it seems will be a prolonged period of time. They also lost ground in the race for the top four, as they now sit sixth in the table, three points behind Chelsea.
Additionally, West Ham, the side sandwiched in between Liverpool and Chelsea, have a game in hand on the Reds.
In falling to Everton, at home for the first time since 1999, the two Merseyside clubs are now level on points. The red side of this rivalry has the tie-breaker advantage, but they have also played one more game than the blue side.
Since the calendar flipped from 2020 to 2021, life for Liverpool has been miserable. They were on the fringe of entering crisis mode before this weekend, and this L just makes it red alert time.
“It’s tough to take,” Klopp said. “I don’t like to talk today about the good stuff because we lose the game and we feel that deeply. I just have to use it tomorrow, and it is our lifeline to keep going. We have to improve on the finishing stuff and then we will win football games.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank, partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” has regularly appeared in WGN, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Tribune and SB Nation. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.