Jurgen Klopp has confirmed numerous Liverpool injury absences for the Merseyside derby against Everton on Saturday.
The big news from Friday afternoon’s press conference was that Andy Robertson will go for surgery on a shoulder injury, which realistically means he won’t play again this side of January, and the Scot isn’t the only Reds player who’ll have to watch on from afar tomorrow.
The LFC manager told reporters today (via Liverpool Echo) that Stefan Bajcetic, Thiago Alcantara and Ben Doak are all confirmed absentees for the game at Anfield, with an update of wait-and-see on Cody Gakpo, who’s trained once with the team in the run-up to the weekend’s fixture.
While Robertson is the only one of the confirmed absentees who, prior to the international break, would’ve been likely to start for Liverpool tomorrow, the others would all have been valuable options to have in reserve for the visit of Everton.
Klopp’s options had already been depleted by the suspension handed down to Curtis Jones, who also misses the Nottingham Forest game next weekend, so to be deprived of two other midfielders in Bajcetic and Thiago is far from ideal.
Their absences are all the more galling in a week where Alexis Mac Allister was playing a World Cup qualifier in Peru at 3am GMT on Wednesday, but luckily the Reds managed to get their South American players back much quicker this time than after September’s international window.
With that in mind, and Klopp coy on whether Gakpo will be able to feature tomorrow, we can expect to see Darwin Nunez leading the line, especially with the Uruguayan buoyed by scoring twice for his country in recent days.
There could well be some inexperienced names among the Liverpool substitutes on Saturday, but we’ve full trust that the manager will find a way to field a starting XI which’ll still be strong enough to maintain our 100% record at home so far this season.
#Ep94 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones🎙️