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Liverpool defender Joe Gomez is expected to be out for around six weeks after the club confirmed that the 21-year-old had suffered a fracture to his lower left leg after a tackle by Burnley’s Ben Mee on Wednesday evening.
The tackle that injured Gomez drew the ire of manager Jürgen Klopp, though throughout the match officials seemed more than happy to allow Burnley to play up to—and sometimes slightly past—the edge of a legal game.
Following the match, Burnley manager Sean Dyche responded to Klopp’s unhappiness by claiming “Ben Mee’s was a fantastic tackle and I think Gomez realised that.” One would imagine that the player, in fact, does not.
For Gomez it’s another unfortunate injury setback after missing three months of the 2017-18 season due to an ankle injury. He also missed an extended period in 2016-17 with an achilles issue and suffered a torn ACL in 2015-16.
It means that, for the fourth season in a row now, Gomez will be out for more than a month due to a serious injury, with the only positive being that each of the injuries does not appear to have been directly related.
For Liverpool, it will mean a chance for Dejan Lovren to re-establish himself alongside Virgil van Dijk following a difficult start to the season that saw the Croatian centre half hobbled by his own ongoing injury issues.