The Reds travelled to the UAE at the beginning of the week with a 33-man team. With Luis Diaz returning home after suffering a recurrence of his recent knee ailment, that number is now 32. Children Marcelo Pitaluga and Kaide Gordon, as well as Diogo Jota and Arthur, are still out with injuries, while Curtis Jones is also questionable because he hasn’t been completely trained since coming in Dubai.
Joel Matip and Naby Keita, who were absent before the break, could potentially play a few minutes against the Ligue 1 team as Klopp plans to employ the majority, if not all, of the players who are currently healthy.Darwin Nunez will meet with the Liverpool team early next week; his Uruguayan team finished last in their World Cup group.
In response to a question on his team selection strategy for Lyon, Klopp stated LFCTV, “We will utilise all the lads pretty much we have here and the boys who are available.”It’s likely that the manager choose two different starting lineups for each half, as is typical for a standard preseason encounter right after returning.
Looking farther into the future, the manager declared, “Darwin will be the first one to join us from the World Cup.” “After that, we’ll see who is available for the second, go home, and then play Manchester City a few days later. Therefore, it is exciting. The Liverpool manager was also questioned over the Dubai Super Cup’s structure, a four-team competition featuring the Reds, Lyon, AC Milan, and Arsenal.
There will be two games for each team, but Liverpool won’t play Arsenal, so the scoring will be different. Teams score three points when they triumph and two when they tie. Regardless of the outcome of the game, penalties will be taken, with the winner of the shootout earning an extra point. The team with the most points at the end of the competition will be declared the winner of the Dubai Super Cup.
Please don’t think I’m using it for the Premier League. Klopp responded when asked about the necessary penalty shootout. But now it’s clear; we had a plan for this event, and now we need to find a solution because it doesn’t make sense for us to play three games and we can’t play Arsenal. We therefore had four teams, and we are currently playing Lyon and AC Milan, with Arsenal playing equally.”
And how can we also determine a winner at the end if you don’t play all the games? Therefore, awarding four points rather than three is helpful. I think it’s a good concept, so let’s test it out. Arsenal really has two games in this competition and another friendly against Juventus after that, but they are not involved in the Carabao Cup.