Liverpool head to Wembley to take on Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final next weekend and Jurgen Klopp is going to miss some very important players.
The Reds might be sitting at the top of the Premier League table but things are getting really tricky for the Liverpool boss because injuries are piling up with each passing matchweek.
Talking to the press in midweek, Klopp has admitted that Alisson, Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota are going to be out for the foreseeable future.
The manager told the press: “Not available: Ali, muscle injury, we don’t know how long it will take but definitely not the foreseeable time coming back. Then we have Diogo with a knee issue is ruled out. Curtis, with a bone/ligament issue, is ruled out.
“With others, we will deal with it day by day. With muscle things, we will see for tomorrow. If you see the line-up early enough you can see who made it and who didn’t make it. That’s it, pretty much.
“With Diogo it will obviously rather take months [and not weeks]. And Curtis… with injuries you have important days, like day five or day ten, when you judge the situation again, because not everyone reacts in same way. It depends on pain level they still have and stuff like this. I couldn’t give you a timeframe even if I wanted to. They all react differently. That is just how it is. When you don’t have these players it makes no sense [to speculate].”
These three aren’t the only ones who will miss the Carabao Cup final because Dominik Szoboszlai and Trent Alexander-Arnold are still recovering and the pair is yet to return to training.
The German manager added: “Trent and Dom are on their way back but not in team training yet, so that means they are not available as well.”
There were talks of an injury to Mo Salah but Klopp did not mention anything in his press conference.
Diogo Jota has scored and assisted 12 league goals this season with an xG of 5.93 so he will be the biggest miss for Liverpool at the weekend. Thankfully, Nunez has been in fine form as well so the manager doesn’t have to worry about naming a strong frontline on Sunday
Szoboszlai and Jones’ absence will also be a bit of a headache for Jurgen Klopp because the next best options are Harvey Elliott and Ryan Gravenberch and both of them have been pretty average this season.
Chelsea have been in dismal form this season but they have some wind on their sails. They are unbeaten in their previous three matches and last weekend, they held Manchester City to a 1-1 draw in the EPL. Liverpool will obviously go into this final as the favourites but with so many big players missing, Pochettino will be hopeful that his boys can dent Liverpool’s hopes.
