Erik: Injuries are holding us back

The Reds boss is having to contend with a number of absentees and rejigged his line-up for the Europa League draw at Fenerbahce, before Antony was forced to leave the field on a stretcher late on.

Although there is no update yet on the Brazilian, the injury issues prompted a question in the manager's press conference ahead of the weekend encounter with West Ham United in the Premier League.

Erik conceded that being unable to select from a full squad is, naturally, impacting on performances and all the staff have to do better to remedy the problem, even if a lot of it can clearly be down to misfortune.

"Yeah. that holds us back in our levels and also in our position in the league," Ten Hag admitted, ahead of Sunday's game. "Because, when you don't have the players available, you can't line up the best team and that is what's holding us back in this moment.

"We need more players often available, and then we have to work altogether on this point. That is the players, the coaching staff, all the other staff. We have to do better and to get more available players because we know when we have them we are a really tough team to play, and when we have them, we can be really, really successful.

"And that is what we have shown over the last couple of months."

Captain Bruno Fernandes is back from the European suspension this weekend and Ten Hag hopes Jonny Evans may recover in time.

However, the Reds could still be missing some influential players for the London Stadium encounter, although progress continues to be made in terms of recovery for long-term absentees Luke Shaw, Tyrell Malacia and Leny Yoro.

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