Liverpool have made a winning start to pre-season, but it was not all good news in Nashville. On Saturday night, a youthful Reds team beat a pretty strong Sunderland side 4-2 at Geodis Park. Youngsters Kieran Morrison and Lewis Koumas were on target, with Dominik Szoboszlai and Federico Chiesa netting in-between.
However, much of the rejoicing was overshadowed by concern over Joe Gomez's injury. In only the eighth minute, he sat down on the pitch and, after receiving treatment, had to be withdrawn, replaced by teenager Ifeanyi Ndukwe. Andoni Iraola did not sound overly positive after full time.
"Probably the worst news has been straight away the injury of Joe. We were happy because we were going through training without losing any players and unluckily for us we've lost Joe straight away. "
This should not have been too surprising. Since Gomez joined the club from Charlton Athletic 11 years ago, he has made 274 appearances in all competitions, but missed 229 matches due to countless injury issues. Right now though, given the porosity of options, losing him has hardly ever been less timely.
For fans, the most exciting aspect of pre-season is getting a first glimpse of any new signings. Thus, those in attendance in Tennessee were hoping to see Jérémy Jacquet, but he as not even named among the substitutes, with Iraola providing this explanation.
"With Jérémy we decided to take it easy with him. He's had a lot of months without playing and he's been training very well, but we're going to take it easy with him. He will play probably in the last game of this tour and he will have time to have minutes."
The 21 year old Frenchman has just arrived from Stade Rennais for £60 million, becoming a Liverpool player in January, before immediately being loaned back to les Rouge et Noirs. However, as Iraola references, he did not play many more times for Rennes, suffering a serious shoulder injury against Lens at Stade Bollaert-Delelis on 7 February, and he has not seen any action since. As he continues to rebuild fitness, Iraola also confirmed that Jacquet will also not be involved against Wrexham in New York City on Wednesday, but is in line to feature against Leeds in Chicago next Sunday.
This though leaves Iraola with no senior centre-backs. Virgil van Dijk will miss the entire American tour, instead reporting to AXA Training Centre on Monday, after playing more minutes than anyone else in Europe for club and country last season. Meantime, Giovanni Leoni is still recovering from the ACL injury he suffered on debut last September, while right-back Conor Bradley is also sidelined.
With the squad as is, if everyone were to be fit, Jacquet and van Dijk are set to be the first-choice pairing, with Gomez and Leoni the deputies. However, 170 days have now passed since Jacquet last played in a match, who knows how long Leoni will need to recover from such a bad injury, while relying on Gomez to remain available for an elongated period if a fool's errand.
Thus, this only serves to emphasise the need for a centre-back signing, if not two. Illya Zabarnyi of Paris Saint-Germain, who Iraola coached at Bournemouth, has been linked, but this appears to be little more than a rumour at this stage. Whomever they have on their list, Richard Hughes and his recruitment team need to act a bit quicker than they have been thus far.
For now, youngsters Mor Talla Ndiaye, Ifeanyi Ndukwe and potentially Luke Chambers too are set to see plenty of minutes at centre-back this week, because Iraola frankly has no one else.
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