You know it’s not promising when a manager doesn’t rattle off the typical response about waiting for the scan before providing an update.
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain’s season could well be over after the Liverpool midfielder was stretchered out of the Reds’ Champions League semi-final first leg on Tuesday night.
Oxlade-Chamberlain picked up an apparent knee injury in a challenge with Roma’s Aleksandar Kolarov after just 18 minutes and was replaced by Georginio Wijnaldum.
After impressing since his summer move from Arsenal, Oxlade-Chamberlain was expected to play an important role for Gareth Southgate’s England squad at this summer’s World Cup although the injury could well put paid to the 24-year-old’s chances of making it to Russia.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp certainly didn’t sound too optimistic about Oxlade-Chamberlain when asked for an update after the final whistle.
“Oxlade, it’s probably a really bad injury,” Klopp told BT Sport.
“If we can say that already before the scan, that’s never good news so that means for us it’s a massive blow, of course.
“We have still a few very important games to go and the squad doesn’t get bigger in the moment, so we obviously need to be creative in the next few games.”
"We are Liverpool. It's all inclusive football, everything is involved, and we obviously have to go the hard way."
Jürgen Klopp speaks to @DesKellyBTS following the 5-2 victory and provides an update on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. pic.twitter.com/XFn0477mGG
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) April 24, 2018
Liverpool defeated the Italians 5-2 in their first leg encounter and will take that three-goal lead to Rome for the return leg.
