Liverpool are hoping Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai will be fit for Sunday’s EFL Cup final against Chelsea – although there was less positive news surrounding four other key players.
Salah, Nunez and Szoboszlai all missed the midweek win over Luton but are not ruled out of the Wembley showpiece, unlike Alisson, Curtis Jones, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Diogo Jota.
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Jurgen Klopp’s assistant Pep Lijnders said: “Dom [Szoboszlai], Darwin [Nunez] and Mo [Salah] we have to see. We have two more days, today and tomorrow’s session, and at the last minute we will check to see if they can be there. It would be great.
“Alisson is out until after the international break with a muscle injury.
“Curtis Jones has an ankle sprain, out until around the international break.
“Trent [Alexander-Arnold] lateral ligament, he’ll be after the international break. [Diogo] Jota medial ligament, after international break. We’re not sure [on the timeframe].”
It means Liverpool will be without several key figures against Mauricio Pochettino’s men but Lijnders was looking at the positives of the situation.
He added: “We look to what we have… it’s also good in life to accept what you have, so that is what we’re trying to do. It brought us success in the past so we try to keep it open. I feel really happy with that. In Holland you say every disadvantage has an advantage.
“You can’t have everything in the world. We have a few injuries so we get young players, players who didn’t play five in a row but they can show up and that is really cool.
“This season is a season where we already created new teams in one season. That didn’t happen a lot in the last years, it’s a compliment to our squad and to the academy.”
We will continue to monitor the fitness of Darwin Nunez, Mohamed Salah and Dominik Szoboszlai ahead of the Carabao Cup final, Pep Lijnders has confirmed.
— Liverpool FC (@LFC) FEBRUARY 23, 2024
Liverpool thrashed Chelsea 4-1 in the Premier League on January 31 but Pochettino has instigated an improvement since then with his side unbeaten in three, including wins at Aston Villa and Crystal Palace and a battling draw at Manchester City.
Lijnders said: “A good final only starts by respecting and analysing the opponent’s strengths and where to start? [Moises] Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez in the middle…
“They had some instability earlier in the season so how can you expect them to perform straight away? They are growing and the manager is doing an unbelievable job. He has found his starting XI and Cole Palmer has been one of the signings of the season, taking them from a rival and performing like that.
“Conor Gallagher is a proper number 10 and a leader but gets his shirt dirty as well. If you let them play between the lines with their technique it will be really hard.
“They have speed up front when they play out of our counter-press, we will need to defend both boxes.
“We have one target, we want to give joy and emotions to the fans. That is our philosophy at the club with Jurgen.”
