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.
"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
“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.”