Andoni Iraola has offered a more measured assessment of Dominik Szoboszlai\u2019s latest setback, while also confirming that Jeremie Frimpong will not be back until after the November international break.<\/p>\n
Szoboszlai was forced off after around half an hour after the thigh problem that had already ruled him out of Liverpool\u2019s previous two matches flared up again. Iraola had initially feared the midfielder could be missing \u201cfor some time\u201d, but his latest comments were more encouraging. A return for Tuesday\u2019s Champions League meeting with Villarreal is not possible, yet the manager stressed that the injury has not been made worse.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a new injury, it\u2019s in the same place as last week, he has not worsened the injury, but we have to be a bit more patient until he recovers fully,\u201d Iraola warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not like we now have to wait a lot of time to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Frimpong\u2019s situation is less straightforward. The fullback played only six minutes against Brentford, going off shortly after his halftime introduction after previously being rested following the midweek trip to Austria.<\/p>\n
\u201cJeremie has a new muscle injury and we will have to wait until he recovers,\u201d Iraola reflected. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be difficult I think before the international break.\u201d<\/p>\n
With fixtures coming thick and fast, Iraola said he will need the full squad at his disposal and may continue to rotate heavily. He pointed to the win over LASK as an example of how changes can still produce a strong result, and suggested he is weighing up further alterations for Villarreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am thinking of putting the best starting XI that I can against Villarreal,\u201d he told assembled media. \u201cBut maybe it is not the one that you are thinking, because some players are not fresh enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably it is better if someone is more fresh to start but I am analyzing the game, how can I put a good starting XI and think in the second half, how can we affect [the game] with the changes?\u201d<\/p>\n
The background to those selection calls is clear in the fatigue data supplied by Simon Brundish. Alisson, Florian Wirtz, J\u00e9r\u00e9my Jacquet, Ronald Ara\u00fajo and Alexander Isak all feature among the players monitored, with the Fatigue Index described as a scale from 0-100, and anything above 65 placed in the red zone. Brundish says the model combines nine different statistics linked to previous injuries, together with each player\u2019s own record, to provide a loose guide to those most at risk of breaking down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Iraola eased fears over Szoboszlai, but Frimpong’s recovery will stretch beyond the break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21843,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[230,175],"tags":[1162,1047,242],"class_list":["post-21844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analytics-stats","category-liverpool","tag-analytics","tag-champions-league","tag-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21844","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=21844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}