While there are still another couple of days of international football to get through before all eyes revert back to the Premier League, Liverpool’s attentions are already firmly on their trip to Man City as they look to kickstart a late push to finish in the top four.
Jurgen Klopp’s side, who suffered premature exits in the Champions League and both domestic cups, currently sit sixth in the Premier League table. With 12 matches still to play, they have a seven-point deficit to make up on the top four in the final weeks of the season.
While they boast two games in hand on Tottenham Hotspur, who currently occupy the final Champions League spot, and host the Lilywhites at Anfield next month, they still find themselves five points behind fifth-placed Newcastle United, despite having completed a league double over the Magpies and after the same total of games played. Throw in the fact that Brighton & Hove Albion will overtake the Reds if they win their own outstanding match, and the race for the top four remains on a knife-edge with Liverpool’s own hopes firmly in the balance.
When the Reds return to action at the Etihad on Saturday lunchtime, it will have been a long two-and-a-half week break for them without club football. That absence will have inevitably been made worse by having to stew over back-to-back defeats to AFC Bournemouth and Real Madrid in their last two outings.
How different the feeling would be at Anfield had their last match been the preceding 7-0 victory over Manchester United. Now, after another false dawn, they have to pick themselves up again with the toughest week of fixtures as a trip to Chelsea and home clash with Arsenal following that away clash at Man City on April 1.
In the first half of the March international break, the Liverpool players not on duty for their national teams were permitted time away from the training ground while undergoing their own individual fitness programmes, as is usually the case. Now they will report back to the AXA Training Centre, with the Reds’ internationals sent to link up later in the week.
When struggling during the first half of the season, the hope was an injury-plagued Liverpool could get through to the World Cup break in one piece before kick-starting their campaign after a mid-season training camp in Dubai. What followed was instead a new low as they put together their worst run of form of the season, while being riddled by further setbacks.
Now, at the business end of the campaign, they really need this latest attempted turned corner to stick.
It will be a strong group that reports for training at the start of the week too, with usual internationals Alisson Becker, Fabinho, and Roberto Firmino not called up by Brazil, and Trent Alexander-Arnold left out by England.
Meanwhile, Darwin Nunez pulled out of the Uruguay squad because of a cut ankle, while Cody Gakpo was sent home early by the Netherlands because of a virus. While the Dutchman has since returned to his international camp, Klopp will have been waiting anxiously to see the condition they return to him in, while crossing his fingers that his remaining internationals avoid any issue of their own.
Luis Diaz could hand Liverpool a welcome boost too, with the Colombian pencilled in to return to team training this week, having last been seen training individually ahead of the Reds’ trip to Real Madrid. Sidelined since October with a knee injury, his previous attempt at a return ended in the need for surgery back in December.
While the forward is unlikely to show his best form during the rest of the season, his presence can still aid Liverpool’s efforts and give them a desired shot in the arm - the same as his initial transfer to Anfield did 14 months ago. Thiago Alcantara will be hoping to offer a similar impact when fit to return from his hip injury also.
Beyond that quartet, Joe Gomez, James Milner, Adrian, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Fabio Carvalho, Arthur Melo, Joel Matip, and Nat Phillips making up the remaining senior group that will report for training at the start of the week. As a result, Klopp could perhaps have as many as seven of his would-be Man City starters in training from the start of the week as pre-match preparations get underway.
Injuries have often been used as an excuse for the Reds’ woes this season, but when the aforementioned pair are both fit and available, only teenagers Stefan Bajcetic and Calvin Ramsay, who have both been ruled out for the season, will be long-term absentees unavailable for action.
Such setbacks, along with loss of form, have left Klopp chopping and changing his team throughout the season in search of finding the answer for Liverpool. With little luck, in this case he will be hoping, in contrast to the old proverb, that a rest actually proves more beneficial than change.
If the Reds are to now put together a late surge and end up successful in their efforts to finish in the top four, they need stability and consistency. As players start returning to Liverpool after the international break, the hard work starts here.
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