Anfield anger as Capello shoulders the blame for Gerrard's Wembley injury

The 30-year-old sustained a grade two hamstring tear in the 2-1 Wembley friendly defeat to France after playing 25 minutes longer than the hour initially intended.

Liverpool are upset as they feel Gerrard was unnecessarily over-played, having being led to believe he would be protected, but accept they are powerless to do anything about it.

It was the midfielder's seventh injury on international duty in three years and all the hard work manager Roy Hodgson has done to ease the burden on a key player – like resting him for the Europa League – has been undone by Capello.

His treatment by England appears to contrast with that of strikers Fernando Torres and Dirk Kuyt who, although they went into their respective internationals with slight ankle injuries, were handled differently.

"We have a good relationship with the Spanish medical staff," said head of sports medicine and sports science Peter Brukner.

"They assessed Fernando and he had a good day or two of treatment over there and didn't train. They felt he was okay to play 45 minutes (in the 4-0 defeat to Portugal) and he came through that okay and we fully expect him to be fine for the weekend.

"Dirk is coming back after a pretty severe ankle injury and after playing three games in a week, he was a little bit sore.

"We discussed it with Dirk and the Dutch team and agreed it would probably not be a good idea for him to play, so he sat out the Netherlands game (against Turkey)."

Gerrard's unavailability could not have come at a worse time with the Reds having struggled in their last two Premier League games – a six-match unbeaten run came to an end at Stoke at the weekend.

The fixture list is relatively kind to Liverpool in the run-up to new year, with games against West Ham, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Fulham, Blackpool and Wolves.

However, Gerrard could miss more than half of those fixtures and with Lucas Leiva suspended for tomorrow's visit of the Hammers, central midfield has been significantly weakened.

Liverpool's head of fitness and conditioning, Darren Burgess, appeared to sum up the feeling at Anfield with an angry outburst on social networking site Twitter.

"Unbelievable from all associated with England and English FA with regard to Steven Gerrard's injury. Completely ignored agreement and past history," he wrote. "Completely amateurish and now we pay for their incompetence. Absolutely disgraceful."

The Australian has contacted the FA to express regret for the strength of his feelings – but there has been no apology from him or the club.