Liverpool suffered a spate of injuries in Saturday’s 4-1 victory at Brentford, with Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota facing potentially significant injuries while striker Darwin Núñez was substituted with a “small” issue at half-time.
The victory was kick-started by an audacious chipped finish from Núñez in the first-half, with further goals from Alexis Mac Allister and substitutes Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo.
The win cements their place at the top of the Premier League for at least the remainder of the weekend. However, Jurgen Klopp’s side must now do without key players – Jones and Jota – while the extent of Núñez’s issue was yet unknown.
“We have to see how much it costs us — we don’t know that yet,” Klopp said in a post-match news conference.
“Curtis got a knock on the lower part of his shin, or above the ankle. We will see what that means. It was what he felt, but he was not 100% sure. That Curtis cannot play on tells you that it must be something because he would have played on at all costs.”
ESPN reports that Diogo Jota left the pitch on a stretcher after suffering an injury to his knee.
“Diogo looks probably the worst; I didn’t see it back but I heard the pictures didn’t look great as well, so we have to see there.
“Darwin we took off because he says he feels un poco – a little [issue] – and but that was enough to immediately push the brake and that’s what we did, so we took him off and brought Cody [Gakpo] on which worked out really well,” he added.
Klopp confirmed that Jones was using crutches after the match. They joined an injury list that already included Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thiago Alcantara, Stefan Bajcetic, Ben Doak, Joël Matip, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alisson.
“Mixed emotions because we lost players, and we don’t know how serious it is. It doesn’t look great for either of them [Jones and Jota],” Klopp added.
Saturday did mark a return for Mohamed Salah, who sustained a hamstring injury last month while at the 2023 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) tournament with Egypt in Cote d’Ivoire.
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