Adam Lallana is arguably in the form of his life.
The Liverpool midfielder is undoubtedly playing better than he has ever done before at club level, playing an important role in Jurgen Klopp’s title-challenging team and finally starting to justify his £25m price tag.
And he has been delivering in an England shirt too, scoring three goals in as many international games after opening his Three Lions account with the winner against Slovakia in August.
It's only a friendly, mate https://t.co/0zbUltkHAa
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 15, 2016
He followed up his header against Scotland by opening the scoring from the penalty spot as Gareth Southgate’s team welcomed Spain to Wembley.
But then people went and jinxed it. They said things like this:
Lallana has been class this season. What a talent 👏
— Josh (@joshV2394) November 15, 2016
Lallana really starting to look like a 20 mil player this season, having much more of an impact when he plays and working a lot harder
— Jamie Bell (@JamieBell97) November 15, 2016
Lallana looking class so far this season for both club and country…Decent pen taker too!!
— Kieron Burke (@kie356) November 15, 2016
Even worse, we saw proclamations like this.
Adam Lallana PFA Player of the Year winner 2017 watch this space #nostradamus #ENGESP
— TJHS (@tjhs) November 15, 2016
Lallana's a quality player , ma guess for PFA poty ⚽️
— Ryan Singleton (@ryansingleton01) November 15, 2016
I'm Gona go for Lallana PFA player of the year this season
— luke mccluskie (@maddog983) November 15, 2016
Now you can’t just tempt fate like that.
And you *especially* can’t tempt fate like that during an international break.
International football ruins hope, crushes dreams and is a scourge of fantasy football managers.
So you can probably guess what happened next. Lallana picked up an injury and had to be withdrawn just 25 minutes into the game.
There’s yet to be any confirmation on the extent of the injury, but you can probably guess what happened after that. That’s right…
Typical, a player comes into form and gets injured during the international break. YNWA Lallana @LFC
— Sam (@samquel21) November 15, 2016
Lallana better not be out for this weekend 😩
Typical international friendlies— Adam Hewings (@hewings8) November 15, 2016
Adam Lallana, in the form of his life; it's just the most typical thing for him to get injured on international duty.
Fuck off England.
— ' (@GerrardsPrime) November 15, 2016
Typical, a player comes into form and gets injured during the international break. YNWA Lallana @LFC
— Sam (@samquel21) November 15, 2016
Pointless friendly sees lallana injured! Bloody typical #internationalsruintheprem
— Andy Byrne (@andybyrne_CBRE) November 15, 2016
Even in the most uncertain of years, some things just don’t change.