Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson injured in Champions League loss at Galatasaray and out of Chelsea game
Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker was forced off with an injury sustained while making a routine save during a 1-0 loss at Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday as the Premier League champions slumped to back-to-back defeats for just the second time under Arne Slot.
The Brazil international dived to his left to keep out a low shot from Victor Osimhen in the 54th minute and immediately signaled to the Liverpool bench that he was hurt.
The nature of the injury wasn’t immediately clear but Slot confirmed Alisson would not be available for the Premier League match at Chelsea on Saturday.
“It’s never positive if you go off like this,” Slot said. “You can be sure he’s not playing on Saturday and let’s wait how long it’s going to take.”
Georgia international Giorgi Mamardashvili is set to fill in after coming on as the replacement for Alisson, who has had spells out injured in each of the last two seasons. Last season, he was out for more than two months — from early October to mid-December — with a hamstring problem.
Alisson’s injury compounded a frustrating evening for Liverpool, which was coming off a 2-1 loss at Crystal Palace in the Premier League on Saturday.
The only other time Liverpool lost two straight games since Slot arrived in the summer of 2024 was in March, when the Reds were beaten by Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League and then Newcastle in the English League Cup final five days later.
A 16th-minute penalty by Osimhen, conceded by Dominik Szoboszlai when his trailing elbow struck Galatasaray’s Baris Alper Yilmaz in the face, was the difference between the teams.
Liverpool, which started with star forward Mohamed Salah on the bench, was awarded a penalty in the 88th minute only for the on-field referee to overturn his decision following a VAR review.
The Reds won their first seven games in all competitions this season — including five in the league and their Champions League opener against Atletico Madrid — but were hardly convincing in any of those matches as they try to accommodate the likes of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, the headline signings in the club’s unprecedented $570 million summer spending spree.
Palace and Galatasaray have finally made Liverpool pay, though Slot said his team was “not so far” away from the form it showed last season when it cruised to the Premier League title.
“There shouldn’t be panic,” Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk said, “but improvement is needed.”
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