Jürgen Klopp reacts to Fabinho injury confirmation
Jürgen Klopp admitted confirmation of the nature of Fabinho's ankle injury is a blow, but is confident the Liverpool squad will be able to step up in the Brazilian's absence.
The midfielder will be sidelined until the New Year after sustaining ligament damage 18 minutes into Wednesday's 1-1 draw with Napoli at Anfield in the Champions League.
But Klopp pointed out during his pre-Brighton and Hove Albion press conference how Georginio Wijnaldum, Jordan Henderson and Adam Lallana have all recently operated in the defensive-midfield role.
Read on below to see what the boss had to say about the injury at Melwood on Friday afternoon...
On how much a loss Fabinho will be...
Of course, that's absolutely bad news. Nothing good to say about that. About a timeframe or how long it will take, we are not sure. But it looks pretty sure that he will not be involved in the Christmas fixtures, let me say it like this. It obviously takes a while. The whole night after the game nobody in the interviews asked me about that and that was my main problem immediately after the game. But meanwhile, we know it since two days or around about and we have solutions for that, for the position. We have to replace him, we can replace him. We played well without him, we played good without him, that's all OK. But now it's all about that he is doing the right things and then he will be back as soon as possible. Until then we have to find solutions. We are not the only team to [have] injured players. That's what we have to deal with and we will.
On the injury providing an opportunity for a player...
Yes, always, that’s how it is. In the preparation for the Napoli game, for example, we watched the Napoli game from last year a little bit, not too much, and Hendo played the position. Gini played the position already, Adam Lallana played the position. We can change system, we can do different things. How I said, losing a player with the quality of Fabinho is big, it’s massive but, how I said, we are not the only team in the Premier League with injuries. You want to push that moment as far as possible through the end of the year because in this period if you are two weeks out you miss six games, that's how it is. That's now the case and we can’t change that anymore and we have to find a solution. We will find a solution. Will it be exactly like Fabinho? Of course not because nobody is like the other one, but it will be good. Then we have to play football and have to win football games again. That's it.
On whether Fabinho's replacement will get a run of games to get some rhythm...
I cannot make these decisions. We have to see. How I said, the three players I mentioned already played the position in plenty of games, so that's not a problem. When I say nobody is like him, that's true because we are individuals, not that nobody is as good as him. It's just different quality for the other player. Gini came on in the game and was brilliant, for example. How I said, last year against Napoli, not only there, but Hendo played the position as well really, really good. It's not about that. We just have to make it work and that’s always the job anyway. Fab couldn’t have played all the games from now until March, that was clear anyway. It’s not cool but we are in contact with him. We think a lot about it but not in the case where we think, 'Oh my God, how can we deal with it?'. It's just let's do the right thing for Fab and let's do the right thing for the team. Let's carry on.