Liverpool resume their push for a top four finish when they visit the Hawthorns on Saturday, but much like the surprising loss to Aston Villa last weekend, they’ll be doing it without a number of key players.
Lucas Leiva and Mamadou Sakho, who have both been key to the Reds recent defensive revival, remain sidelined with their respective injuries and will not travel with the squad to the West Midlands. Daniel Sturridge, who also sat out the debacle in the capital with an ongoing hip problem adding heaping even more misery on what’s already been a miserable season, remains unavailable with Reds boss Brendan Rodgers unsure when he’ll be fit and firing. “We’re unsure at this moment” said the Northern Irishman in his pre-match press conference. “He’s certainly not available for the weekend.”
There was some good news to come out of his briefing at Melwood yesterday though with the news that Jon Flanagan is now back in full training with the team and that Adam Lallana could be available against the Baggies. “Lallana has come back into training in the last few days. We’ll see how he is for the weekend, but none of the others will be fit, I would have thought,” he continued. “Jon Flanagan is now training with the team. Obviously he’s a way off fitness, but we just need to monitor his rehabilitation and we’ll see how he is for the coming games.”
While Flanagan won’t likely be back anytime soon, the return of Lallana could have a positive effect on a team that’s struggling to find the back of the net. “I’m back fit now, 100 per cent and have trained the last two days,” he told the clubs official website. “It was frustrating as I had a bit of a recurrence of it before the Arsenal game, maybe due to being a little bit too eager to get back. But I’ve trained well, I feel good and I’m ready for the run-in. I’m looking forward to pushing on now, pushing on [next season] and improving on this season.”
