The latest Joel Matip injury confirms Liverpool’s fear

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Joel Matip effectively confirms Liverpool’s fears with his latest injury. The defender went off at half-time against Fulham on Sunday.

Jurgen Klopp says Joel Matip ‘has a chance’ of overcoming his latest injury and facing Tottenham Hotspur this week. In other words, he might not.

And that would be a disaster.

It’s not really anyone’s fault, of course. Injuries happen and Klopp did rest Matip in midweek against FC Midtjylland. But this latest one is something that has been coming.

Matip has a problem staying fit, after all. Or at least, he has over the last 12 months.

The 29-year-old started the previous campaign as first-choice partner to Virgil van Dijk. He played wonderfully, too, until injury took him out of the team in October.

Matip went on to start just eight Premier League games last season and one in the Champions League. He hasn’t managed much better this campaign, either, with just five Premier League starts.

But Liverpool need Matip. Van Dijk and Joe Gomez are out long-term – potentially for the season – and that leaves the Cameroonian as the sole senior centre-half in the squad.

Fabinho is showing he can play the role but he’s the team’s best defensive midfielder. They naturally lose something just by playing him there.

And that’s before we ask questions like ‘can Fabinho play a whole season there?’ or ‘Is this just a great run of form?’. Matip remains the reliable, easy option in defence – from a skillset point of view, anyway.

His fitness is anything but reliable and easy right now. Liverpool needed it to be if they were to get through this busy Christmas period, though – especially with the Spurs game being arguably the biggest of the season.

Without Matip, Liverpool would have to play games with Fabinho alongside a youth player. Possibly Jordan Henderson but then you’re without a quality defensive midfielder in front of them.

And if anyone had said at the start of the season that Liverpool would face a top-of-the-table clash with Fabinho and Henderson at centre-half, you’d call it a disaster.

But that appears to be the situation. Hopefully, Matip overcomes the injury and plays regularly over Christmas. Otherwise, the Reds are witnessing their worst-case scenario.