Blow for Liverpool as key youngster is not close to a return – could be out for many more weeks

Jurgen Klopp has revealed that Joe Gomez isn’t close to complete fitness and that the centre-back needs a couple of weeks more to recover up to full speed. The Englishman had a fantastic start to the season partnering Virgil van Dijk in the heart of the defence.

His time in the starting XI was cut short after a lower leg fracture in the 3-1 win over Burnley in December when a Ben Mee tackle forced him to be stretchered out of Turf Moor.

Klopp was speaking to Liverpoolfc.com and lamented that the injury was a serious one. The German then claimed that the Reds have to keep an eye on the 21-year-old as his rehab continues:

“We have to wait, for sure, a couple of weeks. We will see, it is difficult to judge in the moment.

“We thought three weeks ago he would be closer and then we had to make another diagnosis in which we saw that it didn’t work out so far as we wanted, that’s why he is still not in training or running on the pitch.”

This is a major blow to the Reds as Gomez was gelling well with van Dijk in central defence. The good thing for them is that Dejan Lovren is back in training and Joel Matip is fully fit.

In terms of fixtures, fortunately for Liverpool, they only play three games before welcoming Bayern Munich in the first leg of the Champions League round-of-16 clash on 19th of February.

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Van Dijk would be suspended for that tie, but hopefully, we have Gomez back by then. Our next clash is against Leicester City on Wednesday, where we need to keep the gap to four points at the top by collecting a win at Anfield.