Conor Bradley has admitted injuries “killed the start of the season” for him, but is now eyeing full fitness in the wake of Jeremie Frimpong‘s hamstring setback.
Frimpong is facing an extended layoff after suffering his second hamstring injury of the campaign in Wednesday’s 5-1 victory over Frankfurt.
The right-back – who was poised to take up a key role in Arne Slot‘s 4-2-4 setup – lasted just 19 minutes before needing to be replaced by Bradley.
Already considered Slot’s first choice, Bradley is now looking to put fitness issues of his own behind him having now featured in each of Liverpool’s last nine games – making it 10 in a row with a start against Brentford on Saturday.
“It’s never nice getting an injury in pre-season,” he told the club’s official website, having missed the start of the season with a hamstring problem of his own.
“Especially when I nearly got through it then I just picked up a little injury.
“It’s always disappointing and then it sort of kills the start of the season for you because you’re ready to go into it with full fitness and then you have a setback, so it’s difficult.
“It’s never nice but I just need to try to get my full fitness back now and try to play as many games and try to help the team as much as possible.”
Having Bradley back fit and back in form will be vital to Liverpool, who clearly need more consistency in the right-back position after the rotating cast of the campaign’s first two-and-a-half months.
Prior to the trip to Brentford, Bradley had started four, Frimpong five and Dominik Szoboszlai four games at right-back, with further alterations often required mid-match.
Slot: Revolving right-backs may impact Salah’s form
Asked in his pre-match press conference whether that had directly impacted Mohamed Salah‘s form on the right wing, Slot admitted that the need to find “new connections” could play its part.
“It could [be], by the way, because maybe his whole Liverpool career he played with Trent [Alexander-Arnold], so it could,” he explained.
“But he has been in promising positions often enough for him to score goals.
“Maybe with Trent even more, I don’t know, but I think in general for every player if you have quite a few changes in your squad during the summer then everyone needs to find new connections again and that normally goes like this a little bit.”
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