Liverpool manager Arne Slot confirmed Ryan Gravenberch was removed during Sunday\u2019s defeat to Manchester United after sustaining a twisted ankle. The substitution was notable because it was only the second time Gravenberch had been taken off in a Premier League match since March. The injury occurred when Gravenberch tangled with Bryan Mbeumo and appeared to overextend his ankle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI took him off because he twisted his ankle,\u201d Slot revealed postgame. \u201cIs he an injury concern? That\u2019s what we have to wait and see tomorrow, but we have to play [on Wednesday] again.\u201d After the match Gravenberch was pictured icing his ankle in the corner of the dressing room.<\/p>\n
Ankle injuries can swell quickly and sometimes look worse than they prove to be. The club noted that a minor sprain, a grade one, can clear up in a matter of days, but even the most optimistic timeline puts pressure on recovery ahead of Wednesday\u2019s Champions League trip to Eintracht Frankfurt.<\/p>\n
Slot underlined the fixture congestion the squad face. \u201cWe have to play three games in seven days, like we had to do after the last international break,\u201d Slot sighed. \u201cThere is not a lot of time for players to recover but the good thing is we have more than one good midfielder.\u201d He added that Liverpool do have several central options, but the team\u2019s vulnerability without Gravenberch was visible earlier in the season when Crystal Palace and Bournemouth exploited a lighter midfield.<\/p>\n
While the medical staff assess the ankle, Slot attempted to steady the squad\u2019s mood by invoking an approach from a controversial sporting figure. According to the Daily Mail, Slot drew on the example of disgraced former cyclist Lance Armstrong and encouraged players with the message \u201csmile at the camera, then power ahead up the Alps.\u201d<\/p>\n
The club will wait for further scans and assessments before confirming any absence, but the timing of the injury against Manchester United increases the urgency of recovery plans ahead of the midweek European fixture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot confirmed Gravenberch suffered a twisted ankle on Sunday and faces a quick turnaround Eintracht<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[947,299,1047],"class_list":["post-3949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-ankle-injury","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949","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=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}