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Tuesday, April 23, 2024

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Premier League: Liverpool vs Brighton; ‘In recent weeks it was the last two standing are the centre-backs but now we have options’

After back-to-back wins for the first time in what feels like forever for Liverpool, they will be welcoming Brighton to Anfield on Wednesday night.

The Seagulls will be travelling off the back of a very impressive win for themselves against Tottenham in which they dominated from first minute to last.

So now they will be hoping to cause an even bigger upset by beating the champions at their own ground, just like Burnley did not so long ago.

Since then, Liverpool have looked back to their best though with fantastic performances with one of the most aesthetically pleasing goals you will see from Mo Salah.

Against West Ham the defence was again the focus but Jordan Henderson and Nat Phillips were faultless at centre back with Joel Matip’s injury ruling him out of the game, however it was not meant to be serious.

Then it was announced a day after the game that Matip will likely miss the rest of the season.

Thankfully Liverpool signed two centre backs on deadline day to help ease this injury crisis.

Ben Davies and Ozan Kabak from Preston and Schalke respectively were signed, with the pair both signing in time to be able to feature against Brighton.

When Klopp was asked about them starting together, he replied with it being “not too cool” to do that which tells you everything you need to know about that possibility.

One of them may potentially start but with how well Phillips and Henderson did at West Ham it would be a surprise to not see them continue that partnership.

It would be great though to see one of the new lads get some minutes.

Fabinho will still be out also so if a change at the back happens one of Davies or Kabak will get their debut.

Klopp changed the system in Sunday going to a diamond with Divock Origi and Mo Salah up front with Xherdan Shaqiri just behind them.

It worked splendidly well with the midfield three of Thiago, Gini Wijnaldum and James Milner dominating the ball and tempo of the game, so it will be interesting to see if Klopp sticks or twists.

The likelihood is that he will twist if Sadio Mane is back to stretch Brighton’s back three and create space through the middle which Liverpool struggled to do when they travelled to Brighton earlier on in the season.

When they did though Diogo Jota took advantage slotting the ball home and thankfully for Liverpool supporters Jota is expected back sooner rather than later, hence why Klopp allowed Mianmino to leave on deadline day.

Also, in the reverse fixture Liverpool were hard done by due to some very sceptical VAR decisions.

Mo Salah’s goal was disallowed by an offside and then Brighton got awarded a penalty in the last minute for the slightest of touches on Danny Welbeck.

It was reported that many Brighton players were saying after the game that it was never a penalty so hopefully there is none of that drama this time round with Kevin Friend in charge even though he was the VAR official that day.

So, do not 3hold your breath.

It looked like the title was gone after the horrendous run before the two wins against Spurs and West Ham but Liverpool can still see the top of the league.

The Reds are playing catch up without any of the centre backs that started the season and with Manchester City the game after Brighton it is so important the champions do not stumble here.

It almost seems like an impossible task to retain this title but Liverpool have a knack of pulling off the impossible.

Written by Elliot Thompson

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