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As if the terrible performance on Wednesday wasn't enough, Liverpool also had two players go off injured during the course of the game. While it should come to no surprise that Dejan Lovren, who was stretchered off the pitch will be missing the game against Aston Villa, further bad news has come out about Roberto Firmino's injury.
Updating the situation about Lovren and Firmino, as well as Benteke, Rodgers said:
"All three will obviously not be available for the weekend.
"Christian will probably be out for a little bit of time.
"Young Firmino landed awkwardly in the game the other night and there is another scan on his back, but he may have cracked a bone in his back. We’ll see how he’ll be over the coming weeks, but certainly he’ll be unavailable for tomorrow.
"And Dejan Lovren will be out for probably a few weeks with his ligament injury. So, unfortunately, those three are unavailable."
He continued: "You always want a fully-fit squad to pick from, but it’s the nature of it.
"We have Jordan Henderson out as well, so you’ve got some really important players that are unavailable for us. But we’ll manage it.
"The players that are selectable really want to play and fight for the team.
"We’ll await those guys coming back. There’s no timeline on Christian and the others – we’ll see how they go over the coming weeks."
Scans are still to be performed, but the fear is that Firmino has cracked a bone in his back. If that's the case, this is another huge blow for Liverpool, who are in the middle of serious turmoil. In addition to Lovren, Firmino, and Benteke, captain Jordan Henderson remains on the sidelines for the foreseeable future.
With such poor results so far this season, Liverpool need every advantage to try and kick on through the autumn. The upcoming fixtures would be difficult without any injuries to first team players, but without the captain, without any depth in our center back choices, and without the two new, star attackers bought to aid Daniel Sturridge and Philippe Coutinho in scoring goals, that mountain seems incredibly hard to climb.
