Fabinho was left out of the Liverpool squad for today’s defeat to Wolves as he is recovering from illness.
That’s according to journalist Neil Jones. Writing on Twitter after today’s abysmal 3-0 loss at Molineux, Jones reports that Jurgen Klopp has confirmed that Fabinho missed out after feeling unwell.
“Klopp says Fabinho was ill, hence his exclusion from the squad today,” wrote the journalist.
It was a surprise to see the 29-year-old omitted even from bench duty this afternoon. Given his poor form, it would hardly have been unfair to leave him out for footballing reasons alone. But regardless of how he’s playing, Fabinho is a mainstay in the group. Pleased to hear it isn’t anything more sinister.
Liverpool still terrible, even without Fabinho
For one week at least, Fabinho will escape any criticism. The Brazilian has been singled out plenty of times this season as a reason for Liverpool’s disastrous form.
But as today’s game showed, he’s far from alone in falling off a cliff this season.
To be fair, his replacement – Stefan Bajcetic – did a decent job again. He lost the ball for Wolves’ final goal of the day, but that was more as a result of Joe Gomez’s terrible pass to him.
By and large, the 18-year-old did what was asked of him. Looking at the goals conceded, you can’t really deduce that Liverpool lost this game in the midfield.
Still, lost it they did. Again.
That makes it three games without a Premier League goal for Liverpool. They’ve now lost three away games on the spin, losing by an aggregate score of 9-1.
Without a win in five league games, Jurgen Klopp’s side are yet to take three points in 2023. Something has to change, and quickly.
To many, that change was taking Fabinho out of the side. Klopp has done that and Liverpool are still terrible. With nine days before the Reds next game, he should be back ready to face Everton. Whether he’ll be in the squad for that one will show once and for all whether his absence today was purely illness related.