Jurgen Klopp believes Liverpool will have to wrap Joe Gomez up in cotton wool to cope with their left-back injury crisis.
The Liverpool manager is not sure if the versatile Gomez will be able to start every match while he is without both Andy Robertson, who has been out since October with a dislocated shoulder, and Kostas Tsimikas, who broke his collarbone in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal.
Robertson is expected to be out for another month while Tsimikas is a long-term absentee. The versatile Gomez, who has also featured at centre-back and right-back this season, came on for the Greek at Anfield and is set to stand in on the left.
Now Liverpool face a series of defining matches in the next month, including a Premier League clash with Newcastle, an FA Cup trip to Arsenal and both legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final against Fulham.
“Can Joe play all the games now until I don’t know when?” Klopp asked. “Robbo will be back and Kostas will be definitely out for a long while. I don’t know, we’ll have to see. I didn’t have time to think it through yet but it is really tough for us now.
“You have injuries sometimes and you have to accept all of them but a broken collarbone is really bad because it takes so long to heal. Robbo had a different injury but it takes a long time to recover as well. We all know we need luck in these moments and now we have to just make sure we put Joey in cotton wool and make sure he is ready for the game.”
Liverpool go to Burnley on Boxing Day and Klopp thinks it may be too soon for forward Diogo Jota to make his comeback after a month out.
“I don’t want to rule anybody out now, we’ll see,” he added. “We only have one more proper [training] session now so we will see but it would be a surprise. I don’t know. Diogo hasn’t trained with the team but the session I saw was really intense. I didn’t ask the medical department yet.”
