Venue: Anfield
Record (W-L-D), Points, and Last 5 Results
Liverpool: Form – WWWWW
- Blackpool (H/Friendly): Won 7-2
- Leeds United (H): Won 4-3
- Chelsea (A): Won 2-0
- Lincoln City (A): Won 7-2
- Arsenal (H): Won 3-1
Arsenal: Form – WWWWL
- Liverpool (Wembley): Won 1-1 (Pens)
- Fulham (A): Won 3-0
- West Ham (H): Won 2-1
- Leicester City (A): Won 2-0
- Liverpool (A): Lost 3-1
Possible Absences:
Liverpool:
- Kostas Tsimikas (Injury)
- Jordan Henderson (Injury)
- Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (Injury)
- Thiago Alcantara (Illness)
- Joel Matip (Injury)
Arsenal:
- Skhodran Mustafi (Injury)
- Gabriel Martinelli (Injury)
- Calum Chambers (Injury)
- Pablo Mari (Injury)
- Emile Smith Rowe (Injury)
- Sokratis Papastathopoulos (Injury)
Predicted Starting XI:
Liverpool (4-3-3)
- Adrian
- Neco Williams, Billy Koumetio, Van Dijk, James Milner
- Curtis Jones, Marko Grujic, Xherdan Shaqiri
- Divock Origi, Takumi Minamino, Diogo Jota
Arsenal (5-2-3)
- Bernd Leno
- Cedric Soares, Sead Kolasinac, Gabriel, William Saliba, Bukayo Saka
- Mohammed Elneny, Joe Willock
- Nicolas Pepe, Eddie Nketiah, Reiss Nelson
Liverpool host Arsenal at Anfield for the second time in the span of four days. They come off of a dominant 3-1 win against the Gunners. However, with this game being a part of the EFL Cup competition there are bound to be plenty of changes to the squads that played on Monday.
Liverpool will probably take this opportunity to give opportunities to those that impressed in the same competition last week against Lincoln City. This means it will probably be unchanged from that game except for an injury to Kostas Tsimikas who will probably be replaced by James Milner at left back. They also will have Billy Koumetio back and in contention for this game and I expect him to get the start alongside one of Virgil Van Dijk, Joe Gomez, and Fabinho. I guess it’s possible Rhys Williams could get the start, but I don’t think they would put both of those players with little experience in with each other. It’s also possible Grujic doesn’t start if a move away from the club is close to being completed.
For Arsenal, they have a lot of young talent at the club. They went fairly strong for the Leicester City clash in this competition about a week ago, so, I expect them to do similarly against a very strong Liverpool team. They might go a little less strong with some younger players playing as well.
This is in a way a revenge game for Arsenal. They lost on Monday and it was pretty clear they were outclassed by a much stronger side. This game will see a lot of changes and will be an opportunity for Arsenal to get revenge.
Liverpool’s first game in this competition came with a lot of very impressive performances from the players involved. Those players will look to do that again against a more experienced team with much more firepower in Arsenal.
My Prediction: Liverpool 4 – 3 Arsenal. I think both of these teams are a little inexperienced but also are very talented. So, I expect a high scoring game with Liverpool just taking the edge.
The Possible Absences and Starting XI portions of the article will be updated as necessary up until starting lineups are announced