Andoni Iraola won his first match as Liverpool boss, but admitted Joe Gomez’s early injury overshadowed the Reds’ 4-2 pre-season win over Sunderland.
Goals from Kieran Morrison, Dominik Szoboszlai, Federico Chiesa and Lewis Koumas secured victory in the opening match of Liverpool’s United States tour, but Gomez’s withdrawal after just eight minutes compounded the club’s growing defensive concerns.
The experienced defender had started the match as captain before being forced off, leaving Liverpool to finish much of the contest with teenage centre-backs Mor Talla N’diaye and Ifeanyi Ndukwe, who both impressed on their senior debuts.
“Probably the worst news has been straight away the injury of Joe,” Iraola said after the match.
“We were happy because we were going through training without losing any players and, unluckily for us, we’ve lost Joe straight away.”
Liverpool are already short of options at the back, with Iraola having described his squad as “very thin” defensively earlier this week. New signing Jeremy Jacquet, who arrived from Rennes in a 55 million pounddeal, was rested as a precaution after missing much of last season with a shoulder injury, while Giovanni Leoni continues his recovery from a long-term ACL injury.
“With Jeremy we decided to take it easy with him,” Iraola said. “He’s had a lot of months without playing and he’s been training very well, but we’re going to take it easy with him.
“He will probably play in the last game of this US tour and he will have time to get minutes.”
Virgil van Dijk also remains absent after being granted extended leave following the Netherlands’ World Cup campaign, although Iraola confirmed that Alexander Isak, Florian Wirtz and Ryan Gravenberch have arrived in the United States after their post-World Cup breaks and will soon rejoin the squad.
Despite the injury setback, Iraola was encouraged by what he saw from his side in his first outing and believes the performance provides a foundation to build on ahead of friendlies against Wrexham in New York and Leeds United in Chicago.
“A lot of things to correct, obviously, it’s the first day,” he said. “You could feel the heavy legs because the players have been training, so we lacked some freshness.
“But it will give us a good starting point to improve things.”
