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Earlier today I wrote that I was irritated with the international break for preventing us from getting along with the league season. It turns out that I may owe an apology to that break. Liverpool's Daniel Sturridge will miss this weekend's matchagainst Aston Villa at Anfield thanks to a thigh injury he picked up while playing for England last week.
The injury, which will actually keep Sturridge from playing for two to three weeks, won't make Liverpool easy to beat (after all, they have Mario Balotelli) but he did score two of the Reds' three goals against Villa last season. Plus, any little bit helps as Villa look to gain some sort of advantage entering a hellish seven-match stretch. The last two Villa trips to Anfield have seen the claret and blues come away with a 3-1 win and a 2-2 draw, so counterintuitively, there's a chance to feel some optimism.
In addition to hampering Liverpool, the international break gave some Villans time to get recouped from the season's first three matches and saw no injuries to anyone new. Perhaps I don't hate the international break quite as much as I thought I did after all!