Patient Joe Gomez must build back rhythm before his shot at Liverpool redemption 

Collectively, it's been a season to remember so far for Liverpool. But for Joe Gomez, the opposite may well be true from a personal perspective.

The Liverpool centre-back is yet to start a Premier League game in his favored position this term, with his one appearance in the starting XI coming at right-back as a deputy for Trent Alexander-Arnold at home to Norwich last month.

In quieter moments, Gomez may well look to the heavens and curse his rotten luck.

After an injury to Virgil van Dijk in Liverpool's 2-2 draw with Everton in October 2020, Gomez probably geared himself up for a lengthy run in the Liverpool team alongside Joel Matip when the player he refers to as his 'big brother' was poleaxed by Jordan Pickford.

But rather than getting a chance to step up to the plate in Van Dijk's absence as Liverpool defended their Premier League crown, Gomez was struck down by the same sort of misfortune that has characterized his young career at Anfield.

A serious knee injury picked up on international duty in November 2020 meant that, like Van Dijk, he too was facing up to a season on the shelf before Matip joined them in January and the Reds' title was relinquished in meek fashion without a defensive basis to carry on the fight.

It was just the latest in a litany of long-term injuries that Gomez has been forced to endure since he joined as a teenager in the summer of 2015.

Gomez would be made to wait 10 months before his next competitive start under Jurgen Klopp as his name returned to a Liverpool team sheet for the visit of AC Milan in the Champions League in September.

It was a big show of faith from Klopp and a reward for all the London-born defender's hard work put in over long and often lonely hours of rehabilitation at the club's AXA Training Center in Kirkby.

But perhaps Gomez's biggest early-season reward came when he was handed the captain's armband for a 3-0 win at Norwich in a third-round tie in the Carabao Cup later that month.

This reporter was one of two journalists who spoke to Gomez that night and he was quick to detail his pride at captaining Liverpool as one of the senior members of the team that kicked off an ultimately successful tilt at a ninth League Cup at Carrow Road over six months ago.

"It’s a special occasion," he said. "Obviously I was aware a lot of the senior lads were out of the game, but I suppose it gave me a chance to lead the boys. It was a special night. I think the boys did unbelievably well, the boys who made their debut, and to come away with a victory and a clean sheet was special."

Over half a year on from what was promising to be a big return to form for the 24-year-old, though, Gomez has been decidedly on the fringes since.

Much like his own injury misfortune over the years, his return was also unlucky in that it directly coincided with comebacks for Van Dijk and Matip. The arrival and successful adaptation of £36 million-man Ibrahima Konate has not helped either on that score and Gomez has been forced to work his way up from the bottom of Liverpool's four-rung defensive ladder.

Jurgen Klopp insists Gomez needs to find 'rhythm' to get back to his best at Liverpool

Liverpool v Leicester City - Premier League

In a visit to the club's training ground earlier this month, this correspondent asked Klopp directly about Gomez's situation with the Liverpool boss saying it was simply a matter of rhythm for the former Charlton Athletic youngster.

"Joe is an outstanding centre-half and an even better boy," Klopp said. "So he is good but of course it is not the situation he wished for.

"You have a really long time injured and then you come back and think 'I'm ready, let's go' and then you have the problem - not a problem but the situation - of the three other centre-halves who could start earlier and gain a rhythm game after game.

"And he was a bit unlucky in the FA Cup when he was not [COVID-19] positive but it was a false positive so he couldn't play and was unlucky on top of that.

"He is a top-class player and not an inch worse than all the other three who are playing, but the other three have rhythm because they have played more often.

"That's the problem we have, but for a club with aims and ambitions we have it can happen. It will not last forever but so far it has happened like this."

A start in Liverpool's 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup on Sunday was welcome but will not have been the perfect scenario for a defender whose stock-in-trade is most definitely in the centre rather than filling in for the almost irreplaceable Alexander-Arnold at full-back.

Right now, though, it would appear as though beggars can't be choosers and Gomez must simply perform whenever he is handed the shirt by his manager.

Inevitably, his lack of game-time has led to speculation over his future with Aston Villa believed to be keen and Real Madrid, of all clubs, surprisingly linked earlier this season.

Klopp, though, will have no intention of offloading Gomez and unless he is desperate to move away, he will likely be lining up with the rest of his team-mates when the pre-season schedule kicks off in July.

That will be Gomez's most likely route back into the Liverpool team on a long-term basis given his lack of "rhythm" that Klopp views as very important.

He will have to settle for a bit-part role for now as the club chases an unprecedented quadruple, but Gomez is likely smart enough to know that he could yet be part of something far greater in English football's grand scheme.