Agger and Lucas Recoveries Ahead of Schedule

After a start to the season where almost nothing has gone Liverpool's way, today brought some surprising good news on the injury front as both Daniel Agger and Lucas Leiva appear to be ahead of schedule recovering from their injuries. In the case of Lucas that still means he'll be away from football for a number of weeks at the least, but after initial reports Agger would likely be gone through October's international break it turns out the Danish centre back could actually be ready to go against Norwich City on Saturday.

"Daniel probably has a good chance," said manager Brendan Rodgers when asked about the possibility of Agger returning in time for Saturday's match, adding that Fabio Borini is recovering as expected from his swollen ankle and is slightly less likely than Agger to be available to face Norwich. "They haven't trained this week, but we'll see how they go over the next 24 hours. They are [both] responding well."

Almost as surprising as Agger's rapid recovery from a deep knee bruise is news that Lucas Leiva is recovering more quickly than expected from the thigh injury he suffered in warm-up ahead of August's match against Manchester City.

"He has responded very well—he's doing great," said Rodgers. "He'll still have a wee bit of time away but he's working hard and working very well. He was in the pool today and he's got good movement; he's started to run. So hopefully he'll be back sooner rather than later."

This is exceptionally good news for both the club and player, who recently talked about the trouble he's had dealing with being injured most of the past year, and in particular of how hard it was on him to pick up a second fairly serious injury so soon after returning from the first.

"This is the worst year of my career and of my life as well," Lucas said in an interview with Sportv. "Everything is a bit new to me because I have never had so many injuries. Two in a row is very complicated. We tried to stay positive when the first one happened, but the second one was much tougher as it happened so close to the other one."

Injuries like the one Lucas suffered shortly after his return are fairly common for athletes coming back from a long layoff, but hopefully with Liverpool's increased depth in midfield it will be easier to ease the Premier League's best holding player back into action at the second time of asking and he can put his struggles of the past year behind him for good.