Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder has been discussing the injury issues his side have got at the moment ahead of their Premier League clash with Liverpool this weekend.
The Blades have had a tough start to the season and are currently in 19th place with just a point from their first five games – achieved last time out with a draw against Fulham.
Work to do, then, for the Blades but Wilder and his players will be up for the task and up next comes a clash with the current Premier League champions.
Indeed, a lot of the headlines this week have been about how they might get on without Virgil van Dijk who has done his ACL but, similarly, the Blades have big issues of their own and Wilder feels, in fact, their injury problems could impact them more than van Dijk’s does Liverpool.
He said, via Sports Mole:
“Us losing O’Connell, Fleck and Mousett are huge blows for us and I would say bigger blows to us (than) what Van Dijk is to Liverpool, in my opinion, relatively, as we look as a football club.
“We all have to go through these situations but there are still some world-class players (at Liverpool) and though they have lost one world-class player for a lengthy period of time, they have other world-class players to come in.
“We all want our best and most consistent team out there as injuries affect consistency and rhythm, it certainly has for us, and it doesn’t make the task any easier. Their performance levels didn’t dip last night (in the Champions League against Ajax) and I’m not expecting it to on Saturday.”
Wilder makes a more than valid point, and he’ll be hoping those that do feature this weekend can get a result against the Reds.
