Joe Gomez, man, you gotta feel for the guy, but yesterday was brutal. He broke his own lamentable injury record, taking all of **seven minutes** in Liverpool’s first match of their US tour to find himself back on the physio’s table. This wasn’t some minor tweak either; this “knock” against Sunderland immediately dropped the team into an absolute defensive nightmare. We’re talking about a squad now staring down the barrel of **ZERO** senior, fit, and available center backs. Can you even believe that? The season’s just gearing up, and they’re already in crisis mode.
Gomez’s Unlucky Streak Is A Heartbreaker
Seriously, who amongst us doesn’t root for Gomez every time he’s on the pitch? You want to see him succeed, you want to see him stay healthy. But his history at the club has been one long, frustrating saga of prolonged absences due to injury. To see him go down again, and so quickly, just seven minutes into the first game of the US tour, it’s sadly predictable, but it doesn’t make it any less of a gut punch. It’s tough to watch, and it just sets this whole season’s prep off on the wrong foot, leaving everyone wondering, “Here we go again?”
The Defensive Disaster Zone Is Real, Folks
And if Gomez’s injury wasn’t enough, here’s the kicker: he’s not the only one. Incoming defender Jeremy Jacquet is still recovering from a shoulder injury that kept him sidelined for months at the end of last season. That’s a long time to be out, and he’s clearly not ready. Then there’s Giovanni Leoni, who’s still rehabbing an ACL tear from way back last September. He’s got a long road ahead. And who’s left? Virgil van Dijk, who is, of course, still resting after the World Cup. So yeah, ZERO. That’s why new Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola sounded pretty grim post-match. He said, “Probably the worst news has been straight away the injury of Joe. We were happy because we were kind of going through all the training without losing any player. Unluckily for us, straight away we’ve lost Joe.”
Iraola’s playing it super cautious with Jacquet, too. He mentioned, “With Jeremy, we decided to take it easy with him. He has been a lot of months without playing with a shoulder injury. So, I think we are going to take it easy with him. He will play probably the last game of this US tour and he will have time to have minutes.” That’s smart for Jacquet, but it only highlights how thin they are *right now*. He summed it up: “It’s true that we were kind of happy but we’ve lost one now.”
Even if we don’t know the full extent of Gomez’s latest injury, the cold, hard fact is that going into next season with this current roster of senior center backs is a massive, **huge risk**. You’re talking about three key senior defenders who are either already injured or still completely unknown quantities as the real games approach. This team has some serious thinking to do, and they need to make moves to shore up that backline. Otherwise, this “early season” problem is going to turn into a “season-long” problem, and nobody wants that.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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