Liverpool host Arsenal tonight in the rearranged first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final tie.
Liverpool were forced to postpone last week’s first leg at the Emirates due to a Covid crisis which saw the Merseyside club shut down their training ground.
The postponement has given the two-legged tie a different dynamic with Liverpool surrendering home advantage for the second leg, however, the intervening week has helped neither team.
The beginning of AFCON ( Africa Cup of Nations) has seen the sides lose vital players, with Liverpool losing Mo Salah, Sadio Mane and Naby Keita and Arsenal are without Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Nicolas Pepe, Mohamed Elneny and Thomas Partey.
Whilst Covid has meant Arsenal have lost Granit Xhaka, both Emile Smith-Rowe (groin) and Takehiro Tomiyasu (calf) are huge injury doubts.
Klopp has his own injury issues with Thiago sidelined with a hip injury and striker Divock Origi, who has scored two goals in the competition, is out due to a knee injury.
Speaking ahead of the tie Mikel Arteta admitted that the situation was far from easy: “It is extremely volatile and uncertain. In the last week or so we lost so many players for different reasons and we’re trying to adapt to that.
“There are some injuries, Covid and players that have to be away for the Africa Cup of Nations.
“It can change in 10 seconds when the doctor gives you bad news, but our willingness is always to play.”
There has been criticism from some quarters towards Liverpool after it was revealed that some of the Covid tests were actually false positives and that they had should have been made to play the game.
However, Jurgen Klopp was adamant that the issue was out of their control:
“A false positive is a positive test,” he said. “You get a test result back positive and, when you are able to do a retest a day, a day and a half later, you get a result that makes it look like a false positive because this test was a negative.
“It doesn’t change anything for your quarantine but you need to prove it is wrong or right so you have to do a third test and between the first and second and second and third tests you cannot use the players.”
The passage through to the semi-finals could not have been more different for the clubs.
Arsenal swept aside League 1 side Sunderland, 5-1, thanks to an Eddie Nketiah hat-trick.
Whilst Liverpool came back from 2-0 and 3-1 down against Leicester to earn a dramatic 3-3 draw before winning on penalties, with Diogo Jota scoring the decisive penalty.
It will be the third successive season that the clubs have met in the Carabao Cup.
Liverpool won in the fourth round in 2019/20 on penalties following a thrilling win 5-5 draw in 90 minutes and Arsenal got their revenge a year later also winning on penalties this time after a 0-0 draw again in the 4th round.
The two clubs have also met in the semi-finals of the competition before , most memorably in 2007 when Julio Baptista scored 4 goals in a 6-3 win for Arsenal at Anfield.
Arsenal will no doubt hope for a similar result tonight.
Kick-off 19:45 at Anfield.
