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Match Preview: LIVERPOOL vs Stoke City

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Will the star striker return against Stoke on Sunday

Will the star striker return against Stoke on Sunday

Liverpool must find the legs to face a strong and resurgent Stoke on Sunday afternoon, as the games start to come thick and fast and most of the starters from the game on Thursday will no doubt be used again here.

The last time the two sides met, the Capital One Cup final was still to play for, with Stoke winning 1-nil at Anfield in the return leg before succumbing easily in the penalty shootout.

At present, Stoke sit in 8th (Liverpool in 9th), 2 points ahead of Jurgen Klopp’s team, with the Reds still having a couple of games in hand. A win on Sunday would see Liverpool leapfrogging Stoke before those two games even come into account.

For Stoke, it has been a fairly uneventful week, without a game since a 2-2 draw at home against Swansea City last Saturday, whilst Liverpool endured a late Saturday kickoff before a leg-sapping battle against Jurgen’s old side in the Europa League on Thursday.

With that in mind, we may see some Liverpool changes on Sunday, particularly with the tie still evenly balanced, despite 95% of press and opposition fans fully expecting Liverpool to get slaughtered on Thursday.

While the game may yet come too soon, Sunday should at least see the return of Lucas Leiva to the squad and, considering Jordan Henderson’s injury, he could yet be risked with Joe Allen and Emre Can the only two fully fit central midfielders with James Milner preferred wide.

Roberto Firmino and Daniel Sturridge are likely to start against Stoke however, with both having barely 15 minutes between them against Dortmund. It could give them the opportunity to prove they deserve their place in the return leg next week, so we may even get a much improved performance from Sturridge.

For Stoke, it could go one of two ways tomorrow, with around half a dozen first-teamers likely to return from injury. Marko Arnautovic, Glenn Whelan and Geoff Cameron are all doubts after the game against Swansea last week but the former two are likely to return. Cameron is a major doubt though.

Meanwhile, Sunday could see Xherdan Shaqiri, Ryan Shawcross and Glen Johnson return but, of course, if any – or all – of those three miss out it would be a major blow for Stoke.

In terms of current form, Liverpool are in a relatively solid run, with just 1 defeat in their last 10 in all competitions. And even that was an out of character second half collapse away at Southampton.

It was also Southampton that inflicted Stoke’s last defeat, coming almost a month ago. However, over the past 10 games the away side have lost 4 times, drawing once and winning 5 with just 2 of those wins coming in the last 5 matches.

Whatever the lineups on Sunday, it’s likely to be a blood and thunder game, with Stoke hoping to catch Liverpool a bit leggy after their European exertions. A few tweaks here and there though, and Jurgen Klopp could find a welcome boost ahead of the visit of Dortmund in 5 days time.

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I'm a 32 year old Liverpool fan, living in the heart of the City Centre. I've supported the club since the day I was born and have been writing articles for L4L for over 3 years, writing close over 350 articles in that time. My favorite player of the past generation is Sami Hyypia.

I am the current editor for L4L, with my day job being in R&D for the NHS.