Liverpool will monitor the fitness of Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez and Dominik Szoboszlai ahead of the Carabao Cup final showdown against Chelsea. The Reds trio missed the Premier League victory over Luton on Wednesday night and are in a race to be fit to play at Wembley.
Salah suffered a setback on his return from the hamstring injury he suffered at the Africa Cup of Nations. The Egyptian scored in last weekend’s 4-1 win over Brentford but felt discomfort in the same area.
Nunez was withdrawn at half-time in the same game. The initial perception was that the move was simply precautionary due to earlier injuries to Diogo Jota and Curtis Jones, but it seems the Uruguayan might have suffered something slightly more serious.
Szoboszlai, meanwhile, is recovering from his own hamstring issue. Liverpool will give all three players the chance to prove their fitness in the two days before travelling to London for Sunday’s final.
Lijnders said of the trio: “Dom, Darwin and Mo we have to really see. We have two more days and we will check if they are there. [It] would be great if they can be, to be honest. And the rest Jurgen has already said.”
Jota, Jones and Trent Alexander-Arnold will definitely be absent for Jurgen Klopp. Jota was carried off with a knee injury against Brentford. Jones had hobbled off moments earlier, while Alexander-Arnold has struggled with a knee problem for several weeks.
“Curtis will be [out] until around the international break,” Lijnders said. The Dutchman confirmed that the same applied to Jota and Alexander-Arnold.
The injury update means Liverpool may travel to Wembley with as many as 10 absentees. The return of Salah, Nunez and Szoboszlai will reduce that figure to seven.
Alisson, Joel Matip, Stefan Bajcetic and Thiago Alcantara are sidelined long-term. Klopp pieced together a team to face Luton on Wednesday, with five teenagers on the substitutes’ bench.
Asked about Liverpool’s depleted squad, Lijnders said: “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 and we try to keep it. I feel really happy with that, I said it a long time ago.
“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 we already created new teams, it’s a compliment to our squad and our academy.”
