Riding their perfect start to the Premier League season, Liverpool will switch gears on Wednesday when they welcome Chelsea to Anfield in the third round of the League Cup.
The fixtures are coming fast and furious for the Reds these days; having downed Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League last week, they were straight back in to action with a routine 2-0 win over Southampton at the weekend and there’s no reprieve for Jurgen Klopp’s side this week as they square off with the Blue’s at home tomorrow before making the trip to the Capital at the weekend for their first league meeting of the season.
While the Liverpool boss has insisted that they’re keeping their focus on one competition at a time, he’s also hinted that full scale changes are on the way — a real gamble for a side that is expected to end their trophy drought after some heavy investment this summer. Punters can check the leading niche sites like bestuklivecasinos.co.uk for information, news and anything else that has to do with live casino games, but in football even the best laid plans can go awry.
Expected to compete on all fronts, Klopp is going to have to take some risks with his squad if he wants to keep his starters fresh and keep his fringe players happy. Simon Mignolet will be handed his first start of the season and defensive trio Nathaniel Clyne, Alberto Moreno and Dejan Lovren may very well be called in to action. Fabinho, a big money arrival from AS Monaco during the summer, could make the starting eleven for hist first competitive Liverpool fixture while attacking duo Daniel Sturridge and Xherdan Shaqiri will almost certainly be on the team-sheet.
“First of all, we should completely ignore the game on Saturday because [tomorrow] is nothing to do with that,” said the Reds boss in his pre-match press conference. “In the moment, we only think only about tomorrow night,” continued the German. “It’s not about the other three competitions tomorrow night. It is one competition we have to play, not four, so that’s how we will take it; with all concentration, with all focus, with all intensity. It’s a normal game, people are coming to the stadium, so what you need is all there, so let’s exactly do it like that.”
Chelsea were keeping pace with their hosts in these still early days of the Premier League title race, but their draw with West Ham United at the weekend saw them fully surrender top spot to the Anfield outfit. There’s still more than enough time for the Blues to make up the ground, but that’s a matter for another day — new boss Maurizio Sarri, like his counter-part in Klopp, has other things on his mind.
The Italian, who arrived from Napoli during the summer, has completely transformed their style of play and appears to now be getting the best of the wealth of attacking options that his predecessor in Antonio Conte struggled to harness. With that being said, it’s highly unlikely you’ll see too many of them on display tomorrow — the likes of Eden Hazard and N’Golo Kanté, who were both honored at The Best FIFA Football Awards on Monday, will almost certainly drop out of the starting eleven with Cesc Fabregas, Alvaro Morata and back-up ‘keeper Willy Caballero getting the nod. Injuries, on the other hand, will restrict just how many changes Sarri can make as Pedro, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and defender Antonio Rudiger are all expected to miss out as they nurse their various ailments.
With a tough run of matches ahead and bigger trophies on the agenda, there’s no surprise that there’s calls from both sets of fans to take it easy on Wednesday night. Pragmatism and strategy is one thing, but winning trophies is a complete other and I know which one I prefer. Shadow squads or not, I want to win everything, all the time. The road starts here…
