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Mohamed Salah has been left on the Liverpool bench once again as Arne Slot's men take on Leeds United at Elland Road after sitting out the win over West Ham and coming on at half-time in the draw with Sunderland.
"Every player is in my mind to start a game of football because we have so many good players," Slot had said in his pre-match press conference. "Mo has been such an exceptional player for us. He's always in my mind to start or to come in."
Alisson Becker is in goal with Conor Bradley, Ibrahima Konate Virgil van Dijk and Milos Kerkez forming the back four. Ryan Gravenberch, Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai are in midfield. The Hungarian is one booking away from a suspension.
Cody Gakpo, who was taken off at half-time midweek, is joined up top by Hugo Ekitike and Florian Wirtz. Salah and Alexander Isak, the latter of whom has started each of the last two games, are among the options to call upon from the bench.
"I looked at Leeds vs Chelsea and I thought I saw a Liverpool game; Chelsea conceding a set-piece and for the third goal making a big, big error where they conceded a goal from," Slot said on Friday as he previewed the fixture.
"[It was] very difficult for them. Either Leeds went very aggressive to one-v-one or they went to a low block and it was really hard to create chances. It's not only difficult for us, that playing style, it's difficult for many teams — including us.
"So what we expect is what we've seen in the second half against [Manchester] City when they were 2-0 down, coming back to 2-2.
"Eventually [Phil] Foden made the difference with a moment of magic for City and against City they were really strong and played a very good game.
"They were really aggressive and had a lot of long balls as well from their goalkeeper. We know what to expect but what to expect is probably what we've faced [in] all of the games with maybe the exception of two."
Isak is still working his way to full match sharpness after his $169 million (£125 million) transfer went through on deadline day in the summer. And Slot was keen to stress that he wants to bring him into the action more often in future.
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"It's not ideal for me [that he is getting so few touches], but do you know how many he had at Newcastle on average? Twenty-two," Slot explained.
"In this league, strikers don't touch the ball that much but the few times they do touch it, it's quite nice if they then finish it off.
"I have no clue what the stats of [Erling] Haaland are, but I wouldn't be surprised — I have no clue — if he maybe doesn't touch it 100 times a game, but he does score a lot. It's more important for them to touch the ball in the right time than to touch it so many times."
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