Diogo Jota will be out for the next few months after picking up an injury in Liverpool’s defeat of Brentford at the Brentford community stadium over the weekend.
The Reds defeated the Bees on the road thanks to brilliant efforts from all their attackers. Jota was the only one who did not get on the scoresheet in that game, but his fight helped Darwin Nuňez open the scoring. He was then stretchered off in the 44th minute for Mohamed Salah, who went on to orchestrate the downfall of the London-based club that afternoon.
Following the conclusion of the tests carried out to determine the extent of the injury that led to his substitution, the club has announced that he will be out of action for a significant period of time. Asked about the incident in Liverpool’s pre-match press conference before their game with Luton Town on Wednesday night, Jürgen Klopp confirmed that the Portugal international will be out for months.
“We have Diogo with a knee issue ruled out – it will obviously take months”, the German told the media in the press conference.
He said this with visible pain, having had to deal with many injuries to his key players this season. He also spoke on the status of other injured players in the club.
“Not available are Ali [Alisson], muscle injury – we don’t know how long it takes but it will take some time to come back – and Curtis with a bone/ligament issue is ruled out.”
“Then we have the others where we think we will deal with it day by day. Longer term like Trent [Alexander-Arnold] and Dom [Dominik Szoboszlai] are on their way back but are not in team training yet so they are not available.”
The German, who could leave Liverpool at the end of the season having won four trophies, also has Thiago Alcantara, Stefan Bajcetic and centre-back Joel Matip sidelined with injuries of their own.
The first match in a hectic period for Liverpool comes after they face Luton on Wednesday: the EFL (Carabao) Cup final on Sunday. Their opponents are Chelsea, which means the game will be a tough one for a severely depleted Liverpool side to navigate.
Three days later, they will be in FA Cup action against Southampton in the fifth round of football’s oldest competition.
“What I said after the game, as long as we have 11 players, we will go for it, and that’s exactly the idea,” added Klopp in his pre-match media briefing when the focus intensified on how he would navigate the rest of the season without his injured players. “It takes with the boys day-by-day and with the games definitely game-by-game.”
