Part two of John Aldridge’s Liverpool ECHO column on the fallout from the draw with Man City and why the Reds missed one player most.
Of all the injuries to Liverpool’s squad at the moment, I thought Diogo Jota was the biggest miss against Manchester City.
The Portugal international was bang in form before his injury at Brentford and he would have been perfect climbing off the bench when Jurgen Klopp needed a winner. That game was made for him.
We can also lament the fact he was sidelined for the draws with Arsenal and Manchester United in December too. How different might the Premier League table look if he hadn’t been out for those draws at Anfield?
Jota has been excellent when he’s been fit this season and is still third in the scoring charts this season behind Mohamed Salah and Darwin Nunez. I can’t wait to see the No.20 back, he could make a huge difference.
But I think the Reds should be immensely proud of their efforts without Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Thiago Alcantara, Ibrahima Konate, Joel Matip, Curtis Jones, Ryan Gravenberch, Stefan Bajcetic, Ben Doak and Jota.
Look at City’s injury list, they were only missing Jack Grealish and he is the £100m winger who can’t even get into the side.
Everyone though Konate’s injury was tough to take, I thought Jarell Quansah stepped up superbly in his absence and he can quite rightly be hailed as a real player for the future now for the next manager at Anfield.
But full credit to Virgil van Dijk who captained the side and marshalled the defence superbly.
He was playing with four others in the back five who wouldn’t have been there had everyone been fit but he stood up to the task of City and made sure Erling Haaland didn’t get a sniff.
Van Dijk has sort of reinvented himself this season as club captain and looks back to his brilliant best.
He’s in that sort of form he was showing before that 2020 knee injury and he has been a major reasons why Liverpool are still fighting it out on so many fronts. There’s no better centre-back around for me.
