Alisson Becker and Trent Alexander-Arnold will start when Liverpool travel to Villa Park to face Aston Villa on Boxing Day.
Liverpool are currently sixth in the Premier League table, and they will be hoping to close in on the top four with a win over Aston Villa at Villa Park on Monday. The Reds have made a mediocre start to the season and will hope to put things right during the second half of the campaign.
Meanwhile, Aston Villa have shown signs of resurgence under new manager Unai Emery and are no pushovers. The West Midlands club will fancy their chances of getting a good result here, especially given the way Liverpool performed prior to the World Cup.
As for team news, Liverpool will be without Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota. Both players are long-term absentees with injuries. Furthermore, Roberto Firmino and James Milner are expected to miss out with knocks as well. However, key players like Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil van Dijk, and Alisson Becker are expected to return to action following their World Cup excursions.
Jurgen Klopp provided a significant team news update during his pre-match press conference. He said, “Millie didn’t get better since then – he will be out for a couple of games. Same for Bobby. “Bobby, it’s like this, he is already on the better side of it, even when it is only a few days ago, but it’s not a major thing, so we will look day by day with him.”
Aston Villa vs Liverpool Preview: Probable Lineups, Prediction, Tactics, Team News & Key Stats
“Ox is fine, Ox was ill, like Trent, some of the staff as well. That’s why we have to be careful in the moment, absolutely, like everybody, I think it’s going around. That makes planning really difficult for the next game because we were 100 per cent clear what we want to do against City and then you have to change in the last second pretty much, that’s not cool but it’s the situation and that might happen against Aston Villa as well so we need to be flexible, stay flexible.”
“Apart from that, Virg trained now obviously completely normal so will be there. Trent hopefully will be better; he was not part of the full session but of parts, let’s see how that develops until tomorrow. That’s it.”
Alisson is set to start in goal against Aston Villa. In the back four, Alexander-Arnold will reprise his role as the right-back, with Joel Matip and Virgil van Dijk starting as the central defenders. Andrew Robertson will continue as the left-back after starting against Manchester City.
The midfield unit pretty much picks itself. Thiago Alcantara is set to start alongside Fabinho and club captain Jordan Henderson. In the front three, Mohamed Salah will start on the right after his goalscoring display against Manchester City in the Carabao Cup.
Darwin Nunez had a number of opportunities to get on the score sheet against City, and he will be desperate to get back to scoring ways when he starts against Aston Villa. Finally, young attacking midfielder Fabio Carvalho will start as the left-sided forward.
Predicted Liverpool XI: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, van Dijk, Robertson; Henderson, Fabinho, Thiago; Salah, Nunez, Carvalho
