Diogo Jota has had a very faltering start to pre-season and his hamstring injury sustained with Portugal, has followed him to Liverpool.
As reported by medical expert Ben Dinnery (via Football Insider), this could be a big cause of concern for our No.20: “This is a real concern, he picked up the injury playing for Portugal and he has picked up a recurrence in training.
“This calls into question massively his availability heading into game week one. At this moment in time, the chances are that he won’t be involved.
“You can’t afford too many slip-ups in this Premier League, especially given the fact that you’d expect City to start like a steam train.
“Liverpool, if they want to compete, are going to need to hit the ground running as well. Jota would normally be heavily involved in that.
“But unless we see him on the training pitch soon, it’s difficult to see him being involved in the early weeks of the season.”
There is no reason to ever rush any player back from a hamstring injury but given the forward options at the disposal of Jurgen Klopp, there is even less reason to in this case.
It’s disappointing for the 25-year-old to miss so much of this summer already, particularly given how much importance the boss places on this time of the year, but the worst thing to do would be to damage him further.
With Bobby Firmino and Darwin Nunez, we have enough options through the middle to start the campaign and so we can ease the former Wolves forward back into action.
Let’s hope there are no more injury concerns this summer and that we can start the new season in good health.