Klopp Addresses Midfield Concerns After Thiago Injury

There were no shortage of disappointing and frustrating moments from Liverpool's 2-2 draw at Fulham yesterday, but the most distressing of all was Thiago Alcântara limping off in the 51st minute. With Curtis Jones, Naby Keïta, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain all missing the match (illness, calf injury, hamstring injury respectively), seeing another midfielder limp off was worrying.

Manager Jürgen Klopp addressed the situation in the midfield in his post match press conference, and he tried to head off the inevitable questions about if LFC plan to buy another midfielder before the transfer window closes.

“I know what will now come up, it’s clear,” Klopp said. “We said we don’t need a midfielder because we have enough - and we actually have enough, but the problem now is we get punished for something that is not our responsibility really because things like this can happen.

“Nobody could imagine that Curtis gets the thing he gets; it is nothing serious but he is a young boy and it is a kind of stress reaction. Bodies are like this. Naby is only ill and he will now be back definitely next week again. Oxlade happened early and now with Thiago that is, of course, not good and we will see.”

While many spent all summer screaming for Liverpool to buy a midfielder, the reality is they do have enough, possibly even too many, when everyone is healthy. Of course injuries happen, and several of the midfield regulars are injury prone, but unless you have sports washing money to burn it's irresponsible to spend more money on players to add to an already crowded midfield as insurance against injuries.

“Look, a transfer must make sense now and in the long term; we have midfielders, we have still enough midfielders. It is not that we lack midfielders, but it’s just some of them are injured. This is not a good situation, I don’t like it at all, but we have to see how we react on that - but for sure not panicking.”