Teammate’s injury may have robbed Ben Davies of his Liverpool debut

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An injury to Jordan Henderson may have robbed Ben Davies of his Liverpool debut. The 25-year-old is yet to play for the Reds since arriving on February 1st.

Will Ben Davies ever make his Liverpool debut? It’s hard to tell. Right now the answer feels like a ‘no’, however.

Davies arrived on February 1st but we’re now in mid-May without seeing him once. And that’s not to say there haven’t been chances.

Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Joel Matip are all out for the season, for one. Ozan Kabak, who arrived the same day as Davies, is now out, too. Fabinho is back in midfield on top of it all, meaning Liverpool’s defence is anything but swamped.

Yet, still no Davies.

Now, his own injuries have played a part in that. He’s been out at times when he maybe could have played, while any spell away from training halts his learning process.

But it really does seem that Jurgen Klopp simply prefers Nat Phillips and Rhys Williams. Neither, though, went into this season with anything like the experience Davies has. They still haven’t played as much senior football.

So why the lack of trust in Davies? We think it might go back to February when one teammate picked up a season-ending injury.

No Ben Davies debut

Liverpool played Everton on February 20th at a time when Fabinho was out injury. The Red lined up with Ozan Kabak alongside Jordan Henderson that day.

Henderson, though, picked up an injury that eventually required surgery. That was the end of his campaign.

That meant the midfield was now without key players, as well as the defence. And that flies in the face of the stability Klopp wants.

He explained as much recently.

“You can see now for example, Man United – I think the last line played nearly the last 20 games together,” he said, per Liverpoolfc.com. “Then you can make changes everywhere because you have a proper basis. We never had that. 

“Then on top of that, then making two or three changes in midfield just doesn’t work out in football. People say, ‘Try it.’ We would try definitely if we could be not only nearly sure that it could work out, but you need stability in a football team. 

“Other teams are too good that you just make eight or nine changes.”

Klopp wants stability in midfield as he just doesn’t have it in defence. But with Henderson’s injury, he’s barely clinging on to stability there.

Fabinho has been out since Henderson’s injury, as have James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Curtis Jones and Naby Keita. That leaves Gini Wijnaldum and Thiago.

Thiago, though, is playing his first season and trying to adapt in a team that’s anything but stable. We wonder if that’s played into Klopp’s thinking.

Because Williams and Phillips may not add experience but they do bring some stability. They’ve been in and around the first team for years, knowing the style and their teammates inside out.

Davies is quite the opposite. He’s more instability at a time when Liverpool are hanging by a thread in defence and midfield. When Klopp is trying to piece a midfield and defence together, that could prove lethal.

It traces back to Henderson’s injury, then. It left the midfield plans in tatters and as a result, called for extra stability wherever Klopp could find it. Unfortunately, that appears to have come at the cost of Davies.