Liverpool travel to London this afternoon to face newly-promoted Fulham, with the Reds joint top of the Premier League.
We’re expecting to see a few familiar faces back in the lineup in what will be a strong Jurgen Klopp side, after the dour draw midweek to finish the Champions League group stages.
Speaking ahead of the club’s Fulham visit, the German gave journalists some mixed injury news, noting the return of Alisson Becker and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to training, but adding that Diogo Jota and Kostas Tsimikas had sustained “knocks”.
Despite Liverpool having already fielded some key stars midweek, we’re backing Klopp to go with the strongest side he currently has available.
We need to shake off that costly stalemate in Denmark, and we reckon the former Dortmund man will be thinking the same with his chosen XI.
In goal we expect Alisson to trade places with Caoimhin Kelleher – the Irishman has been a highly impressive deputy, but we’d be remiss not to start arguably the best goalkeeper in the world today.
Playing at the back will be Trent Alexander-Arnold, Fabinho, Joel Matip, and Andy Robertson – the centre-back duo have kept a clean sheet in each and every one of the last three games in which they have started together, and we reckon they’ll be partnered up again.
Curtis Jones was benched against Midtjylland, which suggests he’ll start in the league again alongside captain Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum. Naby Keita played over 60 minutes in Denmark, so he’ll most likely make the bench and be kept company there by the recently returned Oxlade-Chamberlain to give Liverpool some extra depth in options.
Leading the line for the Reds will be our usual front three of Mo Salah, Bobby Firmino and Sadio Mane – the Egyptian may have racked up serious minutes in Denmark, but so has Divock Origi, so we reckon Klopp will favour Salah of the two.
EOTK’s XI: Alisson, Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Fabinho, Robertson, Henderson, Wijnaldum, Jones, Salah, Firmino, Mane