Liverpool play Maribor in Slovenia tonight and it is a must win for the Reds if they have any ambition of qualifying from group E.
After two games, Liverpool sit 3rd in group E behind Spartak Moscow and Sevilla. While we may not have had the start to the champions league campaign that we were expecting, there is still plenty of time to turn it around and a win tonight will settle a few nerves going into the final three fixtures in the group.
Liverpool have only played in Slovenia once before, in a two-legged tie against NK Olimpija Ljubljana in the UEFA Cup first round back in 2003/4. Getting a 1-1 draw away, before coming back to Anfield and getting a 3-0 win to go through to the next round. Maribor however have a bad record against English sides, only being able to record one win in eight attempts. That coming in a 2-1 win at home to Wigan Athletic. The last time they played English opposition in the Champions’ league group phase however was a 1-1 draw in the 2014-15 tournament. That result is typical of the Slovenian league champions form in Europe as they remain unbeaten in their last eight European home games.
We welcome back the return of Joe Gomez back into the team for this game, following his one match suspension due to the second yellow card received in the opening group game against Sevilla. Adam Lallana will remain out until November. Still no date set on the return of Nathanial Clyne and Sadio Mane will also miss out due to injury.
After the game against Manchester United Klopp had praise for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain saying that “Since he came in it has been kind of okay but not what we know he is able to do. But then Saturday, Bang! He came on, used his speed, was really spot on, it was a very nice sign. I loved to see it. I was happy with Alex’s performance”. It will be exciting to see if the Ox can keep going in this form and I would love to see him get a start tonight and do well.
In Jurgens pre- match press conference he was asked if he would be rotating the side against Maribor tonight and he responded by saying “Everybody thinks that this is the place where you should rotate, this is the last place I would” he then went on say that “maybe we make one or two changes but that is it”. From that it is quite clear that Maribor will be given respect and rightly so in my opinion, it is an important game for Liverpool anything other than a win in this game will make qualifying from the group unnecessarily difficult. In addition to that, we are playing against a so called “lesser side” we should take the game as a huge opportunity to get a few goals and give our players a big boost in confidence going into our weekend clash against Tottenham at Wembley.
Here is my prediction for tonight’s team.
GK-Karius
DEF- Trent, Matip, Lovren, Moreno
MID- Can, Henderson, Coutinho
ATK- Oxlade-Chamberlain, Firmino, Salah
Score: 3-0 Liverpool.
Article by Tom Culshaw
