Real Madrid face Liverpool in the Champions League final on May 28. It still feels fantastic to say it.
Anyway, with Real Madrid, there aren’t really that many things we need to talk about when it comes to injuries since most of the players at the club – most of them that play – are fully fit and primed for the game vs Liverpool.
For the English giants, it’s a bit trickier. They’re not exactly going through an injury crisis, but they have a couple of players on the sidelines due to precaution. Mohamed Salah and Virgil Van Dijk are not doubts for the game vs Real Madrid, from what people have said, but they still were injured and didn’t feature vs Southampton on Tuesday.
There is someone that did feature vs Southampton though, and that was Joe Gomez. The Englishman was subbed off in the second half off a rather nasty-looking injury that he suffered during the game.
It looks like Joe Gomez has suffered an ankle injury vs. Southampton
Of course, we don’t have the official medical reports yet, but it looked nasty. Dr. Rajpal Brar on Twitter talked about the injury and said that it looks like an ankle sprain, and we are looking at a three week recovery period at the very least, if it is so.
If it is in fact a three-week timeline, then it’s certain that Joe Gomez would not feature against Real Madrid in the Champions League final.
Joe Gomez wouldn’t really have played the game, but you never know in situations like this. You never know who you might need to bring on, considering Jesus Vallejo played in a high-stakes game vs Manchester City when literally no one was expecting him to feature.
If, in the off-chance, Van Dijk isn’t able to recover in time for the Champions League final, then Liverpool would find themselves with only two fit first-team centre-backs in Joel Matip and Konate, which isn’t ideal. They’re great players in their own right but you need someone on the bench, just in case.
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The game is still 10 days away, though, so there’s plenty of time for Van Dijk to fully recover. For Gomez, unfortunately, even that might not be enough.