Liverpool were briefly left anxious after Bradley Barcola went down during the 2-1 win over Atl\u00e9tico Madrid, but Andoni Iraola moved quickly to calm concerns by saying the issue was only cramps.<\/p>\n
The France international had to be treated on the pitch in front of a full Anfield crowd before limping to the touchline and being withdrawn for V\u00edctor Mu\u00f1oz. Given the way he had stopped and the need for immediate treatment, there was understandable concern that Liverpool might have lost one of their most recent arrivals to injury.<\/p>\n
That worry was eased after the final whistle when Iraola explained the situation. \u201cIt was just cramps, especially with Bradley. We are rushing him, but we decided [on Wednesday] to ask him to give the most you have, and let\u2019s see how you recover for the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liverpool now have only three days before they return to action against Fulham at the weekend. With the chance to make it three wins in a row, they will be hopeful Barcola is ready again, especially after being asked to produce another intense effort so soon.<\/p>\n
The forward\u2019s route into Liverpool has been anything but straightforward. He had not played a second of soccer since the World Cup, with his last outing for France coming in the third-place match against England on July 18. After that, he stayed out of competitive action while waiting for a transfer from PSG.<\/p>\n
Although he continued to train with the French club, that could only do so much for his match sharpness. Once the move to Merseyside was completed, he made his debut from the bench in last Friday\u2019s 2-0 win over Ipswich Town.<\/p>\n
That appearance lasted 26 minutes before he was trusted to start against Atl\u00e9tico Madrid. Barcola began brightly and showed signs of threat, but he was unable to convert a fine counter attack in the 50th minute after Florian Wirtz released him through on goal. Even so, the latest update suggests Liverpool\u2019s concern is about recovery rather than anything more serious.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcola\u2019s cramp scare was quickly eased, but Liverpool face a tight recovery window before Fulham.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,713,175,172],"tags":[242,180,182],"class_list":["post-19322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-atletico-madrid","category-fulham","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-injury","tag-player-news","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}