Liverpool Able to Overcome Injury Crisis and Leicester as “Everyone Is Ready to Play”

Liverpool find themselves without three key defenders, with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, and Joe Gomez all absent—the latter two likely for the rest of the season. However, they still had enviable quality across the backline on Sunday against Leicester City.

A big part of that is thanks to Fabinho, who started the season as a midfielder but, following Van Dijk’s injury, will likely spend the rest of it at centre half. It wasn’t the role the Brazilian was expected to play at Liverpool, but so far he has done nothing but impress in it.

“I try to be always in good communication with my teammates—Joel, Robbo, the players around me,” he said after Sunday’s commanding 3-0 victory. “They help me a lot. We knew we were playing against a very good team [so] the communication was very important.

“I know in this position I have to be concentrated every minute of the game and I’m happy because we kept the clean sheet. I’m very happy to be back as well, to play the 90 minutes. I feel good, no problems. I’m happy because I’m back and played the full game.”

The concern, at least for Liverpool fans and one imagines manager Jürgen Klopp as well, will be whether Fabinho and defensive partner Joël Matip can now stay fit with an awful lot of games to play and only youth centre halves and midfielders now behind them.

Sunday’s victory, though, was a strong signal that as long as players like Fabinho and Matip are available, this Liverpool side remains one of the top club sides in England, in Europe, and in all of football and deserved favourites this season to win more silverware.

“We knew we had some important players injured but everyone is ready to play and ready to give 100% on the pitch,” Fabinho added. “Defensively, we kept a clean sheet. Offensively, we just tried to move the ball quickly. We had a lot of occasions to score and 3-0 is fair.”