Reports suggest that Vitaliy Mykolenko has picked a thigh injury that caused his substitution after 69 minutes of the Nations League playoff against Belgium on Sunday.
Ukraine Manager, Serhiy Rebrov, said of the move: “Unfortunately, he has an injury, he will do an MRI, we’ll see. I know Vitaliy. If he didn’t continue playing, then the injury was really serious.”
After he left the field, Ukraine collapsed in the next 15 minutes, conceding 3 goals to lose the 2nd leg and thus the playoff, with an aggregate score of 4-3 to Belgium, and two of the goals coming from former Everton striker Romelu Lukaku on 75 and 86 minutes.
Just how ‘serious’ the injury to Mykolenko really is remains to be seen, with potentially over a week for him to recover if he is to be fit for the Anfield derby on 2 April.
nb: Both Everton and Liverpool petitioned the Premier League to have the derby game moved forward to Tuesday 1 April but their request was refused.