Liverpool injury news: Gravenberch niggle, Trent blow, flu outbreak

Liverpool's availability took a major hit in the week building up to Saturday's win over Burnley in the Premier League.

Numerous key names were absent from the contest due to a mix of injury setbacks and illnesses, with Jurgen Klopp confirming on Friday that a flu-like bug had hit the Liverpool camp.

And despite taking all three points from Saturday's contest against the Clarets, the game did not go without adding a couple more injury concerns to the ever-growing list.

Here's a breakdown of the latest fitness woes coming out of the Burnley game.

Flu outbreak

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Alisson Becker and Joe Gomez were both absent from Saturday's clash due to a flu-like illness, with both losing their battles to overcome the bug by the morning of gameday.

Klopp said: "We thought Joe Gomez would be back but he had a temperature yesterday so we had to send him home. Alisson felt unwell, couldn't sleep or eat really so that's not helpful."

It would be expected that the pair will be back to full fitness by Liverpool's next game against Brentford.

Andy Robertson, who filled in for Gomez at left-back, gave an insight into how the outbreak may have started, revealing that it most likely would have originated from one of the player's children.

Robertson said: "It usually starts in schools with the kids, they bring it home and then the adults get it, then it kind of goes around the changing room quite quickly."

Alexander-Arnold injury relapse

Trent Alexander-Arnold

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Trent Alexander-Arnold was surprisingly withdrawn from the Burnley game at half-time, leading to speculation surrounding whether the defender had picked up an injury.

These fears were confirmed by Klopp after the contest, who revealed that the defender felt something in the same knee that had caused him to be out of action for the past month.

"Same area in the knee," the Reds manager told BBC Sport. "Nothing really bad but he felt it again and we have to see.

"We will assess it. We were made aware of it in the game so thought 'what can we do' then Trent said 'no it's fine'. But it's not as he feels it so we had to be careful and take him off."

Gravenberch niggle

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Ryan Gravenberch was on the bench for Liverpool during Saturday's game but stood little chance of coming on after feeling a niggle during the warm-up.

The decision was made not to risk the Dutchman by introducing him as a substitute, with Klopp confirming after the game that the intention will be to get his midfielder back to 100 per cent before facilitating a return to action.

"Before the game Ryan felt a little bit somewhere," he said.

"They told me then he is fine but you cannot bring on a player who felt something in the warm-up, so we have to recover quickly and hopefully a lot of the boys will be back for the next game because we need them."

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