“Easy choice to be man of the match” – Liverpool’s injury crisis may not be so bad as Lijnders heaps praise on Fabinho | OneFootball

While we often hear managers talk about having two quality players for every position, injuries will always happen so it’s important to have versatile players who can do a job in a crisis.

Fabinho isn’t a total stranger to playing in defence but he was often used as a right back when he played for previous clubs, so there was a feeling that Liverpool would be vulnerable to Chelsea’s attacking threats with the Brazilian playing at centre back last weekend.

Timo Werner did miss one glorious chance but apart from that they looked solid and comfortable, so being without Joe Gomez and Joel Matip wasn’t such a big issue after all.

READ MORE: Mixed injury news for Liverpool as two stars should be fit to face Arsenal but one will definitely miss out

Pep Lijnders was speaking in his press conference today about Fabinho and he admits they want to get their first choice centre backs fit as soon as possible, but he’s also quick to heap praise on Fabinho:

There were even some suggestions after Thiago’s signing that Fabinho would revert to centre back to fix the problem of fitting all the midfielders into the team, but this suggests that it won’t be happening at all.

Lijnders also confirmed that Gomez would be back in training later this week and might be fit to face Arsenal, but clearly they trust Fabinho and it won’t be a huge disaster if he has to deputise for one more game.