Reina Injury Less Serious Than Feared

Following a 1-1 draw with France on Tuesday evening, there were reports that Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina may have picked up a strain at the half while participating in warmups with Spain's other players who started the day on the bench. Beyond that something may have happened to Reina, though, there was little news when it came to what exactly it was he had actually injured or how severe said injury was.

After returning to Liverpool and being checked out by the club's medical staff, it has been confirmed that the goalkeeper felt a twinge in his hamstring and that—most importantly for the club given the congested fixture list over the next month—that twinge was relatively minor.

"We'll wait another 24 hours to see how he is," said Brendan Rodgers, addressing Reina's situation in his pre-Reading press conference. "It's nothing overly serious—he felt just a slight twinge in his hamstring at half-time in the game. We had the checks on him and he had a scan this morning. It's not overly-serious, but we just need to weigh up the risk in the next 24-48 hours."

There's always a chance that the manager will choose to rest Reina for precautionary reasons, especially with two games per week on tap for until the middle of November, but those fearing the worst for Liverpool's goalkeeper can now likely relax. Elsewhere, there was more good news for Rodgers as all of Liverpool's internationals who participated in games on Tuesday and Wednesday came back unharmed.

"They've all been fine. Luis and Sebastian Coates are not back yet because it is a lot of travel. They were playing altitude in Bolivia and they will report back later this afternoon. Apart from that, I've spoken with Steven and Glen this morning. They got back in the early hours of this morning and are recovering. Daniel Agger and Martin [Skrtel] are recovering as well.

"The mentality within the camp is very, very good and we're really looking forward to getting going again at the weekend."

There's still a massive gap in attack due to Fabio Borini's broken foot, and similar to Reina defender Andre Wisdom's fitness will need to be assessed closer to kickoff, but with Skrtel having to be helped off the pitch while on duty with Slovakia and the Reina situation it's fair to say things could have been far worse—and they quite often have been when it comes to Liverpool, injuries, and international breaks.