Liverpool to rest four key players ahead of Manchester United showdown

Jurgen Klopp is taking no risk with a clutch of key players ahead of Sunday’s game against Manchester United (Picture: Getty)

Jurgen Klopp is taking no risks with Liverpool’s awesome foursome ahead of Sunday’s box office Premier League showdown against Manchester United.

The current table topppers welcome the injury-hit Red Devils to Anfield for a game that will boast Anfield’s largest attendance in over half a century.

After several delays, the new upper tier of the Anfield Road stand is open for business and will accommodate 7,000 extra supporters all of whom will expect nothing less than a convincing home win.

Liverpool crushed their fiercest rivals 7-0 in the corresponding fixture last season and will be confident of an equally emphatic success given their run of form and United’s ever-increasing woes.

The Reds warm-up for this weekend’s showdown with a Europa League group stage game against Union Saint-Gilloise and with qualification already secure, Klopp has left four key players behind in Merseyside.

Goalkeeper Alisson Becker, who has only just returned from a hamstring strain, Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and captain Virgil van DIjk have been excused from duty and have been granted extra time to rest ahead of one of the biggest fixtures of the season.

Asked how Liverpool would approach the game given they are already safely through to the next phase, Klopp said: ‘Look, we were a couple of times in this situation that we had to play the last game of the group stages [already qualified].

‘Unfortunately not often enough as usually we have to go for everything and win it, in the past, in the Champions League, super-important games to get through the group stages.

‘We are through and we were that in the past as well. It is really important you find a group who can really fight in a game, who can really go for it, because that is the job to do.

‘We are physically in the situation to do that and from a determination point of view as well; I think we found that and I hope we can choose that line-up because you never know what happens overnight.

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‘The line-up in my mind, the line-up we used today in training, would mean we have a good mix between a bit more experience and youth. We want to go for it.’

Erik ten Hag, meanwhile, could only dream of such luxuries given United’s mounting crisis with both Luke Shaw and Harry Maguire almost certainly out with the injuries they picked up against Bayern Munich on Tuesday night.

Long-term absentees Mason Mount, Casemiro, Christian Eriksen, Lisandro Martinez and Tyrell Malacia also remain sidelined.

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