This could be our Fernandinho moment

As the injury news about Fabinho has been confirmed, Liverpool need to be extremely careful to make sure this isn’t our Fernandinho moment.

The official club website reported that the holding midfielder would be out until 2021 and will miss the vital games during the December period. This could have a serious impact on the Reds’ season and Jurgen Klopp needs to work incredibly hard to ensure it doesn’t derail the title challenge.

Across the country in Manchester, we laughed and giggled as their key players dropped like flies. During 2019/2020, another Brazilian defensive midfielder missed important fixtures and Manchester City suffered as they lost games they should have won and looked shaky without their master of the dark arts.

Fernandinho was proven to be incredibly important to how Pep Guardiola plays and we all thought City looked more vulnerable without him. They eventually won the Premier League by a point but it’s a cautionary tale nonetheless.

Liverpool are dependent on Fabinho in a similar way to how City relied on Fernandinho during last season. There is nobody else in the squad who plays like Fab, nobody else who can patrol the area in the front of the back four and be everyone all at once. Nobody else who has Inspector Gadget limbs or Dyson qualities as he hoovers lose balls, disrupts play and generally guards the defensive like a bouncer on a Friday night.

James Milner could play there, Jordan Henderson could be assigned a deeper role. Adam Lallana might be able to continue his rehabilitation as a deep lying midfielder, but in our heart of hearts we know the team isn’t going to be the same.

There is a risk that old deficiencies might reappear because of Fabinho’s absence. Our defence has looked shaky all season and that’s with one of the best defensive midfielders in the world in the side. Jurgen Klopp may have to come up with some new tactics to account for this.

We’re about to hit a vital point in the season, and while it will be interesting to see how Klopp deals with this curveball, Liverpool need to work very hard to make sure that this isn’t our Fernandinho moment.