Liverpool 3-1 winners against Brighton but captain Henderson suffers injury
Thursday 9 July 2020 08:05, UK
Jurgen Klopp says Liverpool must wait to discover the extent of Jordan Henderson's injury after the Reds captain hurt his knee against Brighton.
Henderson had put Liverpool 2-0 ahead in the eighth minute at the Amex Stadium, but collided with Yves Bissouma late in the second half and had to be replaced by James Milner.
It was reported that Henderson had gone for a scan to assess the damage and Liverpool manager Klopp said he did not know how serious the injury is.
He told Sky Sports: "I don't know what it is exactly but it looks like the knee. We will see. We will have to make scans but we know that it's not nothing, so that's already enough."
When asked in his post-match press conference if Henderson had left the stadium on crutches, Klopp said: "I don't know, I've had press since the game was over pretty much, so I have no idea how he left the dressing room."
Neco Williams, 19, was handed his first Premier League start in the 3-1 win over the Seagulls, but was substituted at half-time for Andy Robertson after picking up a yellow card.
Klopp revealed the swap was only about protecting Williams from a sending off and not about his overall performance.
He told Sky Sports: "It was just about the yellow card. On that side [of the pitch], we didn't protect him well enough and in his first professional game, l couldn't tell him, 'don't make a challenge anymore'.
"That was the only reason. I liked a lot his confidence and l liked a lot how he played."
Klopp was generally happy with his team's showing on the south coast but said they could have scored a few more goals.
"For their [Brighton's] build-ups, we had a super solution and l liked how we did it. We don't have an influence on what the other team is doing, we have to react," he said.
"We did pretty well in most of the situations but when you lose the ball in the wrong moment then they have the advantage. They deserved their goal but then we scored the third, we could have scored more, we had really big chances but all good."
The visit of the newly-crowned Premier League champions was always going to be a tricky task for Brighton, but manager Graham Potter was pleased with how his team handled Liverpool.
He told Sky Sports: "I think we played well. Over the course of the game, we gave a really good account of ourselves, especially going 2-0 down in the manner that we did. Liverpool smelt blood, if you like, because we gifted them a couple of goals so we showed great personality to drag ourselves back into the game.
"We created some chances before we scored a really good goal so we put a lot into that game and there's a lot of positives for us.
"Of course, there are things we need to learn from as well, which is normal, but I'm pleased with a lot that we did. But again, we have to improve as well and that includes myself.
"We wanted to be brave and try to play our game against the best, it's a way to learn and improve your own game and we'll learn from that tonight. Overall, the way we responded to that situation was really good. The boys gave everything and I'm really happy with them."
