With many Fantasy Premier League (FPL) teams already plagued by injury and unavailability heading into Gameweek 21, there was more bad news for owners of Trent Alexander-Arnold (£8.5m) and Jarrod Bowen (£8.1m) on Tuesday.
ALEXANDER-ARNOLD INJURY
The Liverpool defender has been ruled out for “weeks” by Reds assistant boss Pep Lijnders, who was facing the media ahead of Wednesday’s EFL Cup semi-final against Fulham.
Lijnders initially said a “few weeks” to in-house media before being more specific in his pre-match press conference, estimating that FPL’s most expensive defender would be out for “three weeks”.
That would put him out of Gameweek 21, with a Gameweek 22 return a possibility – but not a certainty.
“First of all, some not-that-good news, Trent hyperextended his knee during the last game.
“So he has a little tear in the lateral ligament of his knee and he will need time to recover. He had a scan and he will be out for a few weeks, so let’s see after that.
“He will get some rest and then hopefully he can come back to where he was. Because this guy was decisive in all the games and was the one who created constantly for us from deep and gave the team a high level of flexibility. We will really miss him.” – Pep Lijnders to Liverpool’s website
“He will be out probably three weeks.
“We will have to find new dynamics without him because he made our game flexible so a big blow. But hopefully three weeks.” – Pep Lijnders on Trent Alexander-Arnold in Tuesday’s press conference
Lijnders also provided an update on a few of Liverpool’s other injured/ill players.
“Virgil [van Dijk] is back. He did some runs yesterday on the pitch, looked good again. So he will be back in the squad, he recovered well. So it really helped him not to travel to London.
“Dom [Szoboszlai] s progressing well on the pitch, he’s running, so let’s see. Not available for tomorrow.
“And then we have Robbo [Andrew Robertson], he’s almost at the three-month mark, so he will get checked by the surgeon.
“And if he does that scan and we see everything [so] that we can really progress him, he will go to Dubai for a week to do proper volume sessions, proper sessions, so that will be good for him. Then we see the three-month-mark scan and then we can see how quick he can go into contact again.
“Same for Kostas [Tsimikas]. Kostas is progressing really well, really quick. So hopefully both of them – Robbo and Kostas – will be back at the end of this month to train with the team.”
“[Thiago Alcantara and Stefan Bajcetic] will not be ready for the end of this month. It will probably be going into the next month to train with us. But both [with] no complications, progressing.” – Pep Lijnders
WHICH MATCHES WILL ALEXANDER-ARNOLD MISS?
Liverpool’s Gameweek 21 clash with Bournemouth is less than a fortnight away, so barring a much quicker-than-expected recovery, Alexander-Arnold misses out.
We may get an injury update from Jurgen Klopp in the aftermath of Wednesday’s cup clash with Fulham but there won’t be a Gameweek 21 press conference until well after Friday’s deadline, due to the fragmented nature of the upcoming Gameweek.
The visit of Chelsea is in 22 days, so the England international may potentially feature then.
It’ll be touch and go based on Lijnders’ timeline, so it could be that Alexander-Arnold is held back for the trip to Arsenal on the following weekend.
Much will depend on his return to the grass at Kirkby, with Klopp unlikely to entertain the idea of including Alexander-Arnold in a matchday squad unless he’s had several days of team training.
BOWEN INJURY NEWS
We’ve not heard anything official from West Ham United but The Guardian journalist Jacob Steinberg reported on Tuesday that the results from the scan on Bowen’s ankle “were not positive”.
“Lucas Paquetá will see a specialist for further assessment on a calf injury that will keep the West Ham midfielder out for four weeks.
“Bowen, who hurt an ankle during added time against Bristol City, and Paquetá underwent scans on their injuries earlier this week and the results were not positive.” – Jacob Steinberg in the Guardian
Steinberg added that “it is unclear when Bowen… will be back” but The Athletic then followed this story up by saying that the attacker is expected to be out for at least a month.
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