Milner: Liverpool defender will come back ‘stronger’

James Milner has offered his support to his Liverpool teammate, Joe Gomez, who has suffered a serious knee injury.

Liverpool have had an awful run of injuries so far this season. Allison, Sadio Mane and Thiago all missed several games due to injury or illness.

This was compounded by Virgil Van Dijk suffering a season-ending injury against Everton. The Dutchman has had surgery to help with the recovery from his ACL injury.

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Their defensive troubles were made even worse as Gomez suffered a serious injury on international duty with England. The 23-year-old has also had successful surgery, but he is still expected to miss most of this season.

Milner told Premier League Productions, as cited by Liverpool’s official website, that Gomez will return stronger:

“We’ve spoken about Virg a lot, Joe is exactly the same. Devastated for him.

“An amazing guy, first and foremost and most importantly, and you don’t want to see it happen to anyone but [especially not] someone like him. As a player, how good he is as well. People forget how young he is and what he’s done at this club already and how much he has improved and continues to improve.

“He’s still really young. He’s been through this once before with a bad injury and came through it stronger, so if anybody has got the mental fortitude to deal with this, it’s him. He has been through it before and he came back stronger, and I’m sure that will be the case again.

“Obviously we’re gutted for him and how well he’s been playing as well. Not only for him as a player and a person, but also for us as a team it’s obviously a big miss.

“But, as I say, he’s mentally very strong and he’ll get through it and come back stronger. We’re obviously all here with him and supporting him as much as we can.”