Liverpool will travel to the south coast tomorrow evening for their Carabao Cup clash with Bournemouth and Jurgen Klopp could be set to make several changes to his starting eleven.
The Reds secured another strong victory against Nottingham Forest at Anfield in the Premier League last weekend and will now turn their attention to their Carabao Cup challenge.
After knocking Leicester City out of the competition a few weeks ago, Liverpool have drawn Andoni Iraola’s side and will hope that their run of great form will help them to advance to the quarter-finals.
As usual, Pep Ljinders has taken over Jurgen Klopp’s duties for the Carabao Cup and took to the pre-match press conference today to give a full injury update:
“Conor is not in team training but he is getting really close, he is with the ball, he is doing all these things with [Andreas] Schlumberger and that looks promising,” Lijnders said.
“It will be great to have him back because we know that he can be a really attacking threat on our right side.
“Robbo speaks for itself – he had his operation and that all went to plan. He is one of our captains, so that says I think enough.
“And with Stefan, he’s not available at the moment and we’re working with the medical team to discuss how we introduce him over the coming period.
“We really miss [Thiago] but that will take time, he will not be available. He is an unbelievable professional and an unbelievable guy. We hope to get him back soon.”
How could Liverpool line up vs Bournemouth?
We predict there will be eight changes to the team that beat Forest 3-0 at the weekend, with the side maintaining their successful 4-3-3 formation.
In the defensive set up, we expect to see an almost complete reshuffle with Caoimhin Kelleher, Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Jarell Quansah all joining Kostas Tsimikas.
In midfield, a full refresh is predicted with Curtis Jones, Harvey Elliott and Wataru Endo completing the three in the centre of the pitch, replacing Dominik Szoboszlai, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister.
In the final third, we expect to see the most experienced set-up with Mohamed Salah and Diogo Jota retaining their spot in the starting eleven, whilst recent returnee Cody Gakpo will replace his position competitor Darwin Nunez in the centre-forward role.
