Jurgen Klopp has revealed that he has never seen an injury like the one suffered by Alexis Mac Allister during Liverpool’s recent win over Sheffield United. The Reds midfielder sustained a deep cut to his leg following a heavy challenge and will be unable to play against Manchester United this weekend as he recovers.
Mac Allister missed the late comeback win over Crystal Palace on Saturday and did not travel with the Liverpool squad for their Europa League match against Union Saint-Gilloise. Klopp went into detail on Mac Allister’s gruesome injury in his press conference on Wednesday, with the 56-year-old explaining that he has never seen anything like it before.
“It’s a bit more tricky than we thought at the first moment,” said the Liverpool boss. “The other boy stepped on his knee and the stud went through pretty much the muscle on to the bone. Now we have to wait until the bone is healed and until Macca can deal with the pain, because it is pretty painful.
“Macca is actually a super tough guy, so we have probably to make sure just from an infection point of view nothing happens. That’s really important. I never had this injury for one of my players before but now we have it.
“I hope it will not take that long. I would like to say it’s day by day but that would look like he could maybe play the next game but he will not be ready for that as well. I hope the next three or four days he makes big steps and then we will see.”
Liverpool will have to contend with a number of injuries when they face United this weekend, with the likes of Andy Robertson, Joel Matip and Diogo Jota set to be unavailable. It seems likely that Wataru Endo will start in place of Mac Allister against the Red Devils, who will also be missing several first-team players through injury.
The hosts will be the overwhelming favourites to claim all three points given their impressive form over the last few weeks. They currently sit at the top of the Premier League table, two points clear of second-placed Arsenal, after losing just one match all season.
United, meanwhile, have tasted defeat in over half of their games in all competitions and will seemingly need a miracle to beat Liverpool this weekend. They have not scored a goal at Anfield in five years and were thrashed 7-0 in the same fixture last season, marking one of the worst results in the club’s entire history.
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