Fabinho appeared to pick up a potentially bad injury against Napoli on Wednesday. Jurgen Klopp now has a choice of two players to fill the void – if he’s out this month.
It’s just about the worst time possible for any key player to pick up an injury. Liverpool have 11 games in a little over one month and it’s important that everyone is available.
What terrible timing, then, for Fabinho to roll his ankle. It was a freak accident, too. Hirving Lozano unintentionally rolled onto it after a foul and Fabinho was off shortly afterwards.
It means Liverpool are without a vital player for a key period and Klopp has a choice of two to replace him.
The most obvious is Jordan Henderson. Henderson played the role himself before Fabinho, after all, moving away from it earlier in 2019.
He was good enough there that Liverpool made the Champions League final in 2018, too. But he’s not the one Klopp should go for. Instead, it’s the place for Gini Wijnaldum.
Each player offers something different but there are plenty of similarities. Both are full of energy and work-rate. Both are versatile enough to play comfortably there. And both are good, all-around players.
But they each bring something a little different to a role like this. With Henderson, it’s consistency and discipline.
You know what you’re going to get and you know he’ll offer it every game. Klopp can also count on him to sit cover the defence – he does what’s asked.
Wijnaldum, on the other hand, has a tendency to go missing more than Henderson. What he does have that his captain doesn’t, however, is ball-winning.
Henderson isn’t a skilled ball-winner, while Wijnaldum, a £25m arrival in 2016, is truly outstanding at it – when he’s at his best.
That ability to win the ball is the main thing the team gained from Fabinho making the role his own. It allows everyone to push higher and take more risks when there’s a player winning it back so ably.
Fabinho offers everything in the role, really. It’s why he’s the best around at it. But that ball-winning is so important that Klopp should prioritise it.
The injury to Fabinho is going to hurt the side but Wijnaldum is the best bet at keeping it ticking over.
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