LASK v Liverpool: Champions League team news
Liverpool are likely to make changes for Wednesday’s Champions League clash with LASK, said Andoni Iraola.
A 23-man squad flew out to Austria from Merseyside for matchday two, with Cody Gakpo, Alexander Isak and Dominik Szoboszlai still sidelined.
The trio had each been absent for the Premier League defeat by Manchester City last weekend as a result of fitness issues sustained on international duty.
Asked for an update on them at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, head coach Iraola replied: “They are not far, but it’s difficult to tell you right now any of the three have trained with the group.
“We are taking it day to day.
“Probably I think the three of them are not far, I would say. But it’s going to be… I don’t know if they are going to be ready for Brentford, for Villarreal, for Brighton, I don’t know. I don’t really know.”
On the possibility of altering his line-up for the 5.45pm BST kick-off in Linz, the boss continued: “Tomorrow is a game that we want to win, we need to win.
“We want to start this competition strongly. We have already the first win and we want to win the second one, because it’s always difficult to win games in this competition.
“But it’s true that sometimes because of freshness reasons, because of some niggles, I think it’s going to be difficult to put exactly the same starting XI tomorrow.”
The game against LASK is the second of nine in a 28-day period for Liverpool, who will be seeking to bounce back quickly from the league loss to City.
A trip to Brentford follows on Saturday, before the Reds host Villarreal for their next Champions League fixture next Tuesday.
“You don’t have a lot of time to train,” said Iraola. “You try to prepare the games now a lot of times just with the videos and the tactics boards, just a little bit outside.
“You have to prioritise the freshness of the players.
“Especially now we are playing four games in 10 days, it’s keeping all the legs, all the energy in the games.
“But in cases like Bradley [Barcola] especially, who has been probably the last one to arrive, the more he plays and the more he gets connections with the ones around him, the better he will become.”
Conor Bradley, Hugo Ekitike and Giovanni Leoni are long-term absentees.
Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo are ineligible having not been included in Liverpool’s league-phase squad list.
The hosts, meanwhile, may be without two players who appeared in their defeat by Austrian Bundesliga leaders Rapid Wien last weekend.
George Bello and Moses Usor both came off with injuries in the second half of that 2-0 loss.
Elsewhere, attacker Ramiz Harakate is out after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament in July.
LASK were beaten 1-0 by AEK Athens in their Champions League opener last month.
They had qualified for the league phase with a remarkable comeback against Celtic in the play-offs.
“It would be a shame if we were to freeze at the mere mention of their name,” their head coach, Dietmar Kuhbauer, said at his pre-Liverpool press conference.
“We really want to cause an upset, although to do that you need 11 players to put in a top-class performance, as well as the substitutes.
“You have to play at the very highest level if you are going to achieve anything.”
Last match
Liverpool 0-3 Manchester City (October 11): Alisson, Araujo, Jacquet, Van Dijk, Kerkez, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Munoz, Wirtz, Barcola, Koumas.
LASK 0-2 Rapid Wien (October 11): Jungwirth, Jorgensen, Mbuyamba, Tornich, Andrade, Bello, Ljubicic, Bogarde, Horvath, Kalajdzic, Lang.
