What’s Wrong At Liverpool FC? The Injuries And The Inconsistencies

Liverpool were beginning to turn a corner following a poor start to the season. Three wins on the bounce, including a most impressive one against defending Premier League champions and usual title rivals Manchester City, had them looking like a team who could challenge the best teams once again.

But the optimism came tumbling down when they were defeated by Premier League relegation favourites, Nottingham Forest, last Saturday—a team who prior to Saturday’s meeting with Liverpool had just one win to their name and were rooted to the bottom of the table.

Several reasons could be given for Liverpool’s uncharacteristically poor start to the season.

The most common suggested reason has been the lack of a quality signing in midfield. It is something the club appeared to have eventually agreed with, albeit after a couple of injuries in this area of the park, with the signing of Brazilian midfielder Arthur on loan from Juventus.

This said, a last-minute loan signing wasn’t quite what the fans had in mind when they were calling for a new midfielder in the summer, and Arthur now joins the list of players who will be, or have been, out injured for a long spell, which in turn has led to a reliance on a number of young players all at once.

Playing one or two youngsters in an experienced lineup can work well, but relying on teenagers and players in their early twenties to make the difference on their own at this level is asking a lot.

Liverpool have also struggled to implement their game plan to the high levels seen in previous seasons. This could be due to fatigue or a lack of freshness, but also due to a drop in quality across the team.

At the start of the season it could have been said that the lack of midfield signings made sense if Liverpool were moving to a two-man midfield.

Despite predictions they would switch to such a formation, they began the season with variations of their usual 4-3-3 formation, but they failed to reach previous levels and eventually switched to 4-2-4 / 4-4-2.

Injuries have been such that even a two-man midfield now looks fairly thin on the ground. On top of this, a drop in form from their only defensive midfielder, Fabinho, hasn’t helped, while club captain Jordan Henderson is at an age, 32, where his performances may start to decline, at least in a physical sense.

One of Liverpool’s main problems this season so far has already been alluded to—injuries. It’s not a new problem at Anfield, and though speculating on deeper problems in this area of the club would be unhelpful, there does seem to be a trend developing.

It hasn’t helped that the injured players have all been aged between 25 and 31—experienced players who should be at their mental and physical peak at these ages. Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Naby Keita, Joel Matip, Thiago, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, and the aforementioned Arthur have or are all spending considerable time out of the team through injury.

On top of this, promising young centre-back Ibrahima Konate, 23, who looked like he might be developing into Virgil van Dijk’s best defensive partner, is also out injured.

For the game against Forest, Darwin Núñez was also out injured, and though the club’s new signing up front has looked a bit rough around the edges, he has been a big goal threat any time he has played and Liverpool already miss him when he’s not available.

An injury crisis affecting their season in a big way is not entirely unprecedented for Liverpool. They suffered a similar collapse when trying to defend their title in the 2020/21 season.

Having started the season well they suffered a raft of defensive injuries and slipped down the table to the point where at one stage it didn’t look like they would even qualify for the Champions League.

They eventually finished third that year, and it was still an impressive campaign given they were without their senior centre-backs for much of it.

This time around doesn’t seem quite as extreme, given all the injuries that year were in the same part of the field, but the profile, experience, and quality of the players Liverpool have been missing in the 2022/23 season so far, has been notable.

The manager, Jürgen Klopp, doesn’t think it’s all down to injuries, though.

“It’s a mix of a few things, but we can see as like we see the performances and they are not as stable and as consistent as they as they were. Injuries are a little bit [of an explanation],” the Liverpool manager said in his press conference ahead of their Champions League game at Ajax this week.

“We were actually in a good moment until we lost against Nottingham Forest in a strange game with a lot of problems for us.

“Some players were injured some players were not allowed to play but [played anyway], and then you play against a deep defending side and you lose the game which we should win.

“So do I expect us to play better consistently? Yes. Am I ready to make the necessary steps to get there? Yes.

“Very good performances on a consistent level don’t fall off the trees, you have to work for it and you have to go for it in the long term, and that’s what we are doing.”

By saying that “players who were not allowed to play” Klopp hints that some are coming back to games before they are fully match fit, which could itself lead to more injuries.

Though there have been a raft of problems at Liverpool this season, and the midfield issues are clear (as shown by the fact they had to play Curtis Jones in the midfield two in the last game—his first time in the position), injuries to certain combinations of players at certain moments certainly haven’t helped.

Klopp does not want to use it as an excuse though, and Liverpool will look to improve with what they have before the transfer window opens again in January.