Arne Slot has confirmed that Joe Gomez and Cody Gakpo are unavailable for Liverpool’s trip to face Aston Villa in the Premier League tomorrow night.
Liverpool head to Villa Park aiming to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League table to 10 points. However, the Reds will be without both Gomez and Gakpo in a blow to Slot’s squad.
Arne Slot shares an update on the fitness of Cody Gakpo and Joe Gomez 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/LR7w2WgTrc
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) February 18, 2025
The Dutchman revealed that Gomez will be out for ‘quite some time’ with a hamstring injury picked up at Plymouth earlier this month.
Gakpo is also not ready to return from an unspecified knock with the winger having limped off in the Merseyside Derby last week. The 25-year-old has scored 16 goals in all competitions this season.
“Both are unavailable for tomorrow,” Slot said at his pre-match press conference.
“Cody is the closest to coming back but Joe will take quite some time. He is going to be out for a number of weeks because of a hamstring injury.
“It’s a big blow for Joe and for us. He tries to do everything to be with the team. He works really hard to come back and then the first game when he came back after two or three minutes we saw him making a sprint and now he is out for weeks again.
“So that’s always very hard for a player in every part of the season, let alone a part of the season everyone is looking forward to.”
Liverpool to take cautious approach with Jota fitness
Diogo Jota is an option to replace Gakpo after featuring for an hour in the win over Wolves at the weekend. The Portugal international has struggled with injuries this season and Slot said the Reds will not overload the forward.
“We have missed our number nine that played in the first seven or eight games, but now he is back. He played 60 [minutes against Wolves] and with the decent amount of games we play now you don’t expect him to play 90, 90, 90 in the upcoming [three] matches [against Aston Villa, Manchester City and Newcastle], but he will be involved, hopefully, in all the three games and hopefully with a lot of minutes as well.”
