Robertson Promises to Be Ready for Chelsea

When Andy Robertson planted his full weight on a twisted ankle in Liverpool’s final pre-season match two weeks ago, many fans — this writer included — feared the worst. The injury looked severe enough that the best-case scenario was estimated to a likely four to six week absence, and surgery seemed almost as plausible.

Fans were surprised, then, when the Scot posted a photo of himself running in practice ahead of Saturday’s clash with Burnley’s fighting uruk-hai, and Robertson was even named on the bench, as he watched his replacement Kostas Tsimikas put in a second consecutive impressive performance. He has no intention of staying on the sidelines again.

“I’m back in full training now. I fully trained on Friday, just one day before the game - maybe a bit ahead of schedule but I think the physios just wanted rid of me, to be honest!” the jovial 27-year old told the club’s official site.

“Obviously I’ve been very lucky in my career that I’ve not had too many injuries and certainly not long-term injuries, and long may that continue. But yeah, I’m a nightmare when I’m injured and I want to get back out on the pitch as quickly as possible.

“For me, as soon as I did it and I got the scan results I said, ‘I think Burnley is in my sights’ and there was a couple of people who said, ‘Yeah, you’ve got a chance’ so I managed to cling on to them and a couple of people said I had no chance so I avoided them until it was more realistic!

“I tried my best, I tried everything,” he continued. “I was out running [and] I felt as if I could maybe have trained a day or two earlier but the experts we have at this club are excellent and I still needed to tick a couple of boxes, and luckily I did that on the Thursday. Then I fully trained with the team on the Friday.

“Now I’ve trained today and I’ll have a full week of training so let’s see what happens against Chelsea. But I’ll be ready, I’ll be ready to play, and like I said I’ll hopefully be fit for the rest of the season now.”

Exactly which Marvel alloy Robertson’s ligaments are made of is as of yet unclear, but what is certain is that his swift return is both immensely surprising and — despite his deputy’s admirable efforts in his absence — very much a welcome development for a team that had the entirety of its previous season ruined by injuries to the backline.