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Liverpool could be without five players for the visit of Brighton in the Premier League this weekend, with Arne Slot set to make a decision on whether Mohamed Salah will be back involved with the team.
Salah sat out the trip to Inter Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday after his explosive comments in the mixed zone at Elland Road. The Egyptian is set to head to AFCON following this weekend's round of games, and it is not impossible that he has played his final game for Liverpool as a result.
Even if Salah is involved in the fixture, it is likely that he will be named on the bench again. Liverpool played well without him in Europe and Slot is likely to pick a similar starting XI after a positive result and a clean sheet.
Elsewhere, Conor Bradley, as a result of the yellow card he picked up against Leeds United, is suspended having picked up five Premier League bookings so far this season.
Midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai is only one caution away from a suspension too, which would be a major blow for Liverpool if he was to pick up a suspension as well.
The Hungarian midfielder has been on four yellows since the Manchester City defeat, and needs to reach matchday 19 before the limit stretches to 10. He has four more games — Brighton, Spurs, Wolves and Leeds — to get through.
Federico Chiesa was sick midweek, which is why he didn't travel to Italy. The winger would have been unlikely to start anyway and may still be feeling the effects of his illness.
Cody Gakpo, meanwhile, is set to be absent for a few weeks because of a problem he picked up against Leeds. Giovanni Leoni is set to miss most of the season with an ACL injury.
Slot will offer the latest update on every Liverpool player's availability in his pre-match press conference on Friday. That is scheduled for 9am UK time (4am ET) at the AXA Training Centre.
The Dutchman will be hoping to see another improvement in performance this weekend, following on from an impressive Champions League showing.
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"Tactics are one thing, but if you have quality players that play against each other and both tactics are right then it's also a lot about energy and about fighting spirit," Slot said on Tuesday.
"That's what I saw today, by the way, from both sides. That's why it was such a tight game, not many chances for both teams. But I knew before we came here [they were] a very experienced team, disciplined, working hard, can press you really high, can go to a low block and if they are in a low block they can counter-attack so good.
"So, they have a lot of weapons and I think we've tried as much as we can to control the game when we had possession, to be calm and keep it as long as we could. What made the difference in the end was, I think, a great defensive performance from our team, like it was from Inter Milan."
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