Liverpool visit the King Power Stadium this weekend to face Leicester City in the Premier League and Jurgen Klopp has hinted that he could use a new defensive combination to try and stop Jamie Vardy.
Fabinho has been ruled out with a muscle injury meaning January signings Ozan Kabak and Ben Davies are both in line to make their debuts for Liverpool on Saturday.
He told the press, as per Liverpoolfc.com: “So, yeah, Jamie is obviously a proper challenge in this league, the way he plays, the way he gets set up by his mates, so that’s a proper job to do,” the boss replied.
“But you can only do it always with the whole team, that’s how we always try to do it. You have to avoid the passes to him. Jamie is a player, a world-class player for sure, in a specific area of the pitch and with his speed that’s really tricky.
“With the boys, obviously we had now some sessions together where we really could work on this defensive set-up and that’s very, very important. But we have, as well and on top of that, other players available – Nat Phillips did really well, together with Hendo [and] together with Fab.
“We have to find a solution and all of them had the chance this week to show in training who is ready. So, I have to make a decision tomorrow, obviously.”
Henderson is another player who can play in central defence vs the Foxes and there’s a big chance that Klopp uses the midfielder in the back-four.
Rhys Williams and Nathaniel Phillips have both played some games for Liverpool this season but we don’t think Klopp is considering either of them for the starting XI this weekend.
Ben Davies had played 19 Championship matches for Preston before joining Liverpool and Kabak had played 14 matches in the Bundesliga before making the move to England. So both these players have minutes under their belts to make it work but Leicester are a totally new beast from what they had played against in the first half of the season which is why we feel only one of them will get a start on Saturday, alongside Jordan Henderson.
