Liverpool take on RB Leipzig in the Champions League Round of 16 this week and the Premier League side are expected to be without Fabinho and James Milner.
James Milner had to be taken off early during Liverpool’s 3-1 loss to Leicester City on Saturday and speaking after the match, Klopp revealed that the midfielder has picked up a hamstring injury.
Jurgen Klopp told the BBC, as quoted by Liverpoolfc.com: “Hamstring, I think. That’s what he said. He felt only a little bit but he didn’t want to take the risk, we didn’t want to take the risk, so we took him off.
“We’ll see how it develops, but yeah, hamstring.”
A hamstring injury means James Milner will not be fit in time for Tuesday’s game and to make matters worse, The Telegraph are now claiming that Fabinho will also be absent for this encounter.
Fabinho missed the Leicester game due to a muscle injury and as per the report, his injury is serious than initially thought and the Brazilian is likely to miss the next two to three matches.
Fabinho could miss Leicester, RB Leipzig and Everton through injury. #awlfc [telegraph]
— Anfield Watch (@AnfieldWatch) February 13, 2021
This is a huge blow for manager Jurgen Klopp since Fabinho had been a constant figure in central defence in the absence of Joe Gomez and Virgil Van Dijk.
But this setback now means Jordan Henderson will once again have to play at centre-back against RB Leipzig and he will be accompanied by January signing Ozan Kabak.
The same pair played in central defence against Leicester on Saturday and up until a point, they did more than a decent job. And the Liverpool boss will be hoping they can come up with the same level of performance on Tuesday as well.
Liverpool have more or less fallen out of the Premier League title race so now the Reds will have to devote their entire focus on progressing to the next round of the Champions League.
