Hard times ahead for stricken Cisse

They say lightening never strike’s twice. But the last time this fixture was played out, strike twice it certainly did with Jamie Caragher and Milan Baros cruelly having the majority of their season taken away from them with a broken leg each.

Fate once again proved that she is a great believer in irony as a routine tussle with a Blackburn defender saw £14m French forward Djibril Cisse fall to the ground, badly breaking his shin in two places. Liverpool loose one of it’s biggest goal threats, while the player himself wonders if he will play again.

Yesterday’s operation to reinforce his leg and pin his tibia back together, ensuring it is held in place for the long rehabilitation process ahead, has been deemed a success. Yet the club has since confirmed the player’s and fans’ worst fears. Djibril Cisse would miss the rest of his debut season in a Liverpool shirt.

Cisse will no doubt be absolutely devastated. Personally, I have never had the misfortune to have broken a limb, (touch wood) and I just can’t imagine what it would feel like. I speak for every Liverpool supporter across the land when I say I wish him a very speedy recovery from perhaps the worst kind of injury a footballer can endure.

We all hope nothing more than that when he returns, Cisse will be able to get back to his very best. Of which, of course, we haven’t seen from him in a Liverpool shirt, as he continues to adjust to a new club, more competitive league not to mention a foreign land.

I remember seeing the incident during Saturday evening’s game. The camera was tight in on Cisse and the covering defender as he tumbled; I watched his leg kind of turn into a limb of rubber. At first I thought it was one of those breaks and moments of interference in the transmission you sometimes get from live broadcasts as his leg seemingly distorted.

But there was no distortion or digitised break in the transmission, because for the young Cisse, it was a different kind of break entirely.

But despite the wrench of Djibril Cisse’s career-threatening injury, it is clear that Liverpool now have a strike force quandary. Benitez must now begin to take stock of what his strike options are, both on a temporary basis until the re-opening of the farcical transfer window in January, as well as the contemplation about how much to spend on Cisse’s longer term replacement, if at all.

I’ll look at Benitez’s ‘Offensive Methods’ next time...