I am just as angry this morning as the Liverpool medical staff were last night upon seeing Steven Gerrard injured whilst playing for England. Liverpool had an agreement with England that Gerrard would only play for 60 minutes in their friendly against France last night but Gerrard stayed on the field past the 60 minute mark and as a result picked up a hamstring injury in the 85th minute which looks serious.
Liverpool’s head of fitness, Darren Burgess expressed his disgust at all this last night on Twitter saying, “Unbelievable from all associated with England and English FA with regards to SG’s injury. Completely ignored agreement and past history. Completely amateurish and now we pay for their incompetence. Absolutely disgraceful.” Burgess deleted the two tweets just after 11pm last night.
Capello then came out and defended his decision to keep Gerrard on for longer than the agreed period. The England boss claimed he had no choice but to keep Gerrard on the field as he had lost Gareth Barry and Rio Ferdinand at half time due to minor injuries and he needed a senior player on the field. So now Manchester City and Manchester United will have their players fit for the league but we as Liverpool have to suffer by loosing our captain for what could be a long spell depending on the results of the scan today.
Capello was asked if the agreement had been for Gerrard to play no more than an hour, and Capello replied, “Liverpool asked that he can play one hour if it’s possible. They can’t decide how long a player plays with the national team. If it’s possible, he’d have played an hour. I understand why they’re upset, and I’m also upset. The problem is that, when you play this game on Wednesday after a lot of Premier League, Europa League or Champions League games, it’s possible there might be an injury for a player. The Premier League, every time, is a tough league for the players.”
Clearly Capello was given strict instructions by Liverpool that playing Gerrard for over an hour would not do him any good as they know his body and medical condition best. Hamstring injuries are a clear sign of overworking the player and now we have to suffer. It was a friendly for crying out loud so why do you need to keep a senior player on?
Get rid of these midweek International Friendlies. All they do is get players to be injured and not be able to play for their clubs!
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taking a look at the silver lining, at least this will force Hodgson to play players in correct positions (unless Poulsen comes into the middle alongside Lucas while Meireles continues out wide…)
That is my fear Jay that we may have to play Poulsen now. But if Jole Cole is fit then he can play behind Torres and then we have Raul and Lucas in the middle, Maxi and Dirk out wide (if Dirk is fit) if not then Pacheco should slot in.
Cannot understand why Capello keeps him on that long. It is just a friendly game not a tournament. Nothing to be gained from winning except pride and maybe Capello’s job.
And they go on to loose on top of that!