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Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has a couple of tough decisions to make in his starting line-up for tomorrow’s trip to Manchester City (start at 4.30pm) as the Reds prepare to battle their rivals for the title of the Premier League at the Etihad.
Liverpool travel to Manchester without three influential players Virgil Van Dijk, Fabinho and Thiago Alcantara, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain also remains injured.
But the Premier League champions are at least fueled by the availability of Joel Matip, while Naby Keita and Kostas Tsimikas returned to action midweek.
Klopp’s men beat Atalanta in the Champions League by beating the Italian team in Bergamo thanks to a hat-trick by Diogo Jota.
Jota, 23, now has six goals in his last four games and has seven goals in 10 appearances for Liverpool in total.
The Portuguese striker replaced Roberto Firmino as center forward against Atalanta and fitted brilliantly with Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, who also scored.
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However, Klopp came out in full defense of Firmino in his press conference prior to City, and the Brazilian was criticized for his goalscoring return in recent months.
Klopp said of Jota: “I’m not sure if ‘surprised’ is the right word, but I don’t expect that, to be honest.
“He is the player that we think he would be and we also think that we can help him reach the next level, as he can help us go to the next level because of his quality. I am very happy for the impact he had. Up to here.”
But speaking of Firmino, he added: “I don’t have to say about Bobby Firmino and how important he was to us. So I’m not wasting my time on that. Who’s not with us, I don’t care if I know about him, to be honest.
“It was in many games that he made the difference, maybe without scoring, but also in other games. So I would be really embarrassed if I had to mention the qualities of Bobby Firmino now.”
And with this, Liverpool is expected to line up with a 4-3-3 instead of a 4-2-3-1 – which leaves them a little more exposed in the absence of Fabinho and Thiago – Firmino is expected to return. to the starting eleven.
Then Klopp can call up players like Jota, Takumi Minamino and Xherdan Shaqiri from the substitute bench, like he did against West Ham a week ago.
Salah and Mane will start wide open after having scored a total of seven goals for Liverpool against City.
In midfield, captain Jordan Henderson and Gini Wijnaldum will hold their places since the win over Atalanta, leaving a spot available.
The former City Milner midfielder is an experienced option, but Klopp may choose to inject an additional creative quality into his midfield in the form of the return of Keita, who played 25 minutes in Italy on Tuesday night.
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Keita started Liverpool’s first four games of the season, while the 34-year-old Milner has yet to start a league game this season, coming off the bench five times.
Defensively, Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Andy Robertson and Joe Gomez choose themselves in goal and in the last four, respectively.
That leaves Joel Matip battling the inexperienced duo of Rhys Williams and Nat Phillips for minutes alongside Gomez.
Williams helped keep a clean sheet against Atalanta, while Phillips impressed in last weekend’s win over the Hammers in their Premier League debut.
But after the Liverpool manager’s pre-match comments, Matip should return to the side for his third Premier League start since October 20, 2019.
“With the centrals it has been good,” said Klopp. “The guys enjoyed the challenge, it was a challenge, it is a challenge, so now we saw that they are obviously capable of doing really special things and I’m very happy about that.
“Yes, Joel is back and now he’s back 7-8-9 days in training, which helps a lot. And after the game, there will be another 14 days of training for him, so that helps too. So we’ll see. what do we do on Sunday. “
Liverpool XI full predicted vs Man City: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Gómez, Matip, Robertson; Henderson, Wijnaldum, Keita; Mal, Firmino, Mane
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