Tuesday night’s Champions League affair sees Liverpool host Ajax at Anfield, in what is set to be a tactically fascinating clash between two mass-possession giants in the footballing landscape.
It goes without saying that Liverpool will be desperate for a result here, after being thrashed by a resurgent Napoli side in the Champions League group stage opener.
Jurgen Klopp’s side have endured multiple setbacks already this season in what has been a painfully stuttering start, with confidence looking as though it has firmly hit a low point at the club.
The Reds have struggled in front of goal across their last two fixtures in all competitions, and have it all to do if they are to leave with all three points, taking on an inspired Ajax side who haven’t lost in seven matches and have not conceded a single goal in their last five matches.
Injury News
Klopp delivered another unfortunate round of injury news in Monday’s pre-match press conference with yet another key player falling victim.
The German boss revealed that Andry Robertson will miss the rest of the month at the very least.
Speaking in the press conference, as per Liverpool Echo, ahead of Liverpool’s second game of the Champions League group stage, Klopp said:
“[Robertson is] injured.
“Robbo now is not 100%, it was very late, in the 93rd minute or whatever, he actually felt it the next day only, but yes he is out and he is out at least until after the international break.”
During the press conference, Klopp also confirmed that Curtis Jones is not available. Though, there is some good news to come out of the press conference, with Fabio Carvalho now available for selection after training with the squad on Sunday.
Predicted XI
After suffering a heavy defeat to Napoli last time out, Liverpool will need to respond with a win to not only save their blushes of potentially failing to make it out of the group, but to reinstate some belief back into this battered, bruised and under-confident Reds side.
With that being said, here is how we think Liverpool will line up in what we anticipate to be a tactically fascinating encounter between Alfred Schreuder and Klopp.
4-3-3
Alisson,
Alexander-Arnold, Matip, van Dijk, Tsimikas,
Elliott, Fabinho, Thiago,
Salah, Nunez, Diaz
Our predicted line-up features four big changes to the side that suffered the 4-1 defeat to Napoli at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona.
With Robertson beginning his stint on the sidelines, deputy left-back Kostas Tsimikas will start in his place.
Joel Matip comes back into the line-up, and will reclaim his place in the starting XI back from Joe Gomez.
Veteran James Milner steps out for the £225k-per-week Thiago Alcantara, who was dubbed the “heartbeat” of Bayern Munich during his time with the Bundesliga outfit, by Alex Chaffer on Twitter.
And finally, Roberto Firmino drops out in place of a more orthodox target man in Darwin Nunez, with the Uruguayan surely desperate to get back to goalscoring ways, having not scored now for three consecutive appearances.
So there we have it. Potentially four big changes for a classic UCL match-up that Klopp will be desperate to win.
