• Premier League

Liverpool sweating over Reina injury

ESPN staff
October 18, 2012
Brendan Rodgers will give his No. 1 goalkeeper every chance to prove his fitness © Getty Images
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Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers is hopeful Pepe Reina has avoided a serious hamstring injury.

Keeper Reina damaged his hamstring while on international duty with Spain and he will be closely monitored ahead of Liverpool's game with Reading at the weekend.

Rodgers has spoken to Reina and the club will give him until Friday afternoon to prove his fitness for the visit of the Royals.

"We'll wait another 24 hours to see how he is," Rodgers told his pre-match press conference. "It's nothing overly serious - he felt just a slight twinge in his hamstring at half-time in the game.

"I met him here last night about 7.15pm. All of our players coming back from international duty come to here [Melwood] to be assessed and reported before they go back home.

"We had the checks on him and he had a scan this morning. It's not overly-serious, but we just need to weigh up the risk in the next 24-48 hours.

"I think Spain picked up a few injuries. By all accounts the pitch wasn't the best and a number of them picked up muscle injuries.

"Speaking to Pepe last night, he very rarely has any muscle injuries, but hopefully it will prove not to be serious."

Brad Jones is on stand-by to replace Reina and Rodgers has every confidence in his understudy.

Rodgers said: "It's good for us that if he can't play, we've got Brad Jones, who has made fantastic improvement since the beginning of the season and shows up every day of his life very well here.

"So if Pepe can't play, we've got an able understudy who can come in and do very well, I'm sure."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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