Liverpool are furious that Steven Gerrard will be out of action for three to four weeks after injuring his hamstring against France last night.
The cause of the anger on Merseyside is that Liverpool felt that they had an agreement with England boss Fabio Capello that Gerrard would not play more than an hour. Gerrard hurt his hamstring in the 85th minute and the response was almost immediate from Liverpool.
On his Twitter page, Liverpool’s head of fitness and conditioning, Darren Burgess, wrote:
“Unbelievable from all associated with England and English FA with regards to SG’s injury. Completely ignored agreement and past history. Completely amateurish and now we pay for their incompetence. Absolutely disgraceful.”
Capello’s response was that he need Gerrard to continue to play because of because slight injuries had forced Rio Ferdinand and Gareth Barry to come off at half-time.
But isn’t the bigger question here why do international managers agree to play players for only 45 minutes or an hour? In last night’s England game is appears that Capello had made arrangements to only play Rio Ferdinand and Kieran Gibbs for 45 minutes and Steven Gerrard for 60 minutes.
Given that Capello is limited to, I believe 6 substitutes, he actually could only make at most 3 tactical moves during the game. And since Gareth Barry got injured and Andy Carroll was carrying a knock, Capello actually only had one sub that he could use to change formations. Why would a manager restrict himself like this? There is no way he can be successful with these restrictions.
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