Rafa Benitez may have sprung from bed this morning, buoyed by the late Torres winner at Villa last night, but he has one major injury concern to furrow his brow over breakfast.

Glen Johnson limped from the field with a knee injury in the dying stages of the Villa Park win and reportedly left the ground on crutches. The reports go on to claim that this measure was just a precaution on Liverpool’s part but Rafa did reveal post match that Johnson will undergo scans later this week…

“We don’t know, we have to do a scan – maybe he has a problem with his knee,”

An injury to Johnson would be a cruel blow to Liverpool who are beginning to limp their way to a semblance of form. Defensively there has marked improvement of late, with four clean sheets in the last seven league games. That stat, together with a kind run of fixtures to come (TOT stk wlv BOL EVE), had put Glen Johnson back on our Watchlist and restored him as potential fantasy favourite.

Johnson has suffered a series of price drops in the Fantasy Premier League game after an outstanding and profitable start to the season. The volume of sales had started to slow in recent weeks as Liverpool picked up defensive returns. This latest injury scare could well see them accelerate once more with a further price drop on the way.

Rafa meanwhile will be sitting uneasy as he awaits news of the scan. Without Johnson he may well be forced to recall Skrtel and switch Carragher to right-back. As we’ve seen previously, that’s an arrangement that has unbalanced the Liverpool backline and left them vulnerable. They would also be losing a major attacking threat down the right wing.

The only possible good news here is that it would further cement Agger’s place in central defence. The Dane has started the last seven league games for Liverpool but the threat of rotation with Skrtel is always hanging over him. That would likely be removed should Johnson face a spell on the sidelines.