Liverpool’s stuttering season has been dealt a fresh blow after Fabio Borini broke his right foot during training with Italy’s Under 21s.
By DOMINIC KING
The 21-year-old was preparing for his country’s Euro 2013 play-off with Sweden in Pescara when he suffered the injury to his scafoide bone and taken to hospital for X-rays.
There is no diagnosis yet of how long Borini, who was signed for £10million from Roma in July, will be out but it could be that he is sidelined for months rather than weeks.
It leaves Luis Suarez as Liverpool’s only fit striker for the foreseeable future and leaves Brendan Rodgers fretting that his leading scorer will return from Uruguay’s World Cup qualifiers against Argentina and Bolivia unscathed.
The Liverpool boss loaned out Andy Carroll to West Ham in August and was unable to replace the England striker, leaving him short of options. Under the terms of the deal, Carroll cannot return to his parent club until January at the earliest.
Rodgers was desperate to bring Clint Dempsey to Anfield but was outbid by Tottenham. The decision by the club’s board not to back their manager looks even more costly in light of Borini’s injury.
Suarez meanwhile will line up against Argentina on Friday and he has admitted for the first time to a South American newspaper that he will have to change his ways on the pitch.
He has courted controversy once again this week after he went down theatrically in an attempt to win a penalty in last Sunday’s 0-0 draw with Stoke at Anfield.
But Suarez, who has been booked three times in the Barclays Premier League this season, is aware that he needs to stop showing dissent to match officials.
‘As the years go by you realise what you have to correct,’ Suarez said. ‘There are things I must improve, like my attitude on the pitch.
‘But that’s how I’ve played since I was a kid. I try to correct it but there are times when my anxiety makes me play that way. Those are things I must improve on.’ Meanwhile, Liverpool have dismissed Alessandro Del Piero’s claim he rejected a move to Anfield out of respect to the victims of the Heysel disaster.
The Italian striker moved to Sydney FC last month after leaving Juventus but he was also linked with Liverpool. He says, though, that a joining Rodgers’ side was never an option because of the tragedy before the 1985 European Cup final when 39 Juventus fans were killed.
But an Anfield official said: ‘No attempt was made to sign Alessandro Del Piero. Nobody at Liverpool spoke to the player or his representatives at any stage about the possibility of him joining the club.’
