One Liverpool player’s career at Anfield has been plagued by injuries for a large portion of it, but his current record is far more enjoyable to read.
The reputation of being “injury-prone” can accompany a football player for the duration of their career. Joe Gomez, the center back for Liverpool, is a prime example; there’s no getting around the fact that Gomez has sustained some major injuries while playing for Anfield.
He tore his ACL early in his rookie season, and an Achilles problem later postponed his return. When he was at the peak of his Liverpool career in late 2018, a challenge from Burnley defender Ben Mee left him with a broken leg. However, according to Transfermarkt, in the three years after his season-ending rupture of the patellar tendon in November 2020, he has only missed five games due to a muscular problem earlier this year.
Prior to the international break, he was also absent from the match against Brentford; however, this was obviously a minor issue, as he is anticipated to return for Saturday’s match against Manchester City (via This is Anfield). Contrary to popular belief, Gomez has actually had much greater availability recently.
Joël Matip, his partner at center back, shares the same sentiments. Matip missed 108 games in his first five seasons with Liverpool due to injuries, which made him not just prone to injuries but also plagued by them. At the end of the latter year, Jamie Carragher declared that he was “just too injury prone” and that “his body can’t take the rigors of playing Premier League football week in, week out.” His 69 absences in just two campaigns between 2019 and 2021 were his lowest point (via the Mirror). Matip was one of the main casualties of the squad-wide injury crisis that ensued the following year, having missed almost half of Liverpool’s title-winning campaign.
Those concerning data indicate that, for the past two and a third seasons, things have gone better than anyone could have imagined, including Matip. He has only missed 12 games in all competitions since the start of 2021/22, and this year, he is one of just five players—along with left-back Kostas Tsimikas, midfielders Harvey Elliott and Dominik Szoboszlai, and forward Darwin Núñez—who have been in the starting lineup for every game. He’s started seven Premier League games, including six straight between late August and mid-October, almost as a retaliation for Carragher’s previous remarks.
We’re not sure if this is due to a shift in his personal regimen, updated recommendations from Liverpool’s medical staff, a smaller role in the team that allows for more rest, pure luck (the kind that was long overdue), or a combination of all of those factors, but the most important thing is that his availability rate has considerably increased.
