Liverpool narrowly missed out on the Premier League title but they have to get dust themselves up because they have a Champions League final to play next weekend.
The Premier League side will face Real Madrid in the final on Saturday and this will be their chance to avenge the defeats they have suffered at the hands of the Los Blancos in the previous few years ago.
Liverpool are currently one of the best and most consistent teams in the world plus they have already bagged the Carabao Cup and the FA Cup. They might have missed the chance to secure a quadruple by failing to overtake Manchester City but a treble which includes the Champions League trophy won’t be a bad idea at all.
The Anfield outfit are unbeaten in their last 18 matches and have won 10 out of their previous 12 games in the Champions League. The last time these two sides met was back in 2021 in the Champions League Quarter-final and it was Zidane’s Madrid who had come out as the 3-1 aggregate winners.
Liverpool team news and injury updates for the UCL final:
Jurgen Klopp has a few injury concerns going into this match and one of them was Virgil Van Dijk who had picked up a knock in the FA Cup final.
Thankfully, the defender has made a full recovery and was an unused sub in Liverpool’s final league game of the season. In that game, Konate and Joel Matip played in central defence so for the final one of them will move to the bench.
Usually, Konate has been playing in the European games but we think the more experienced Joel Matip will come into the first XI against Real Madrid.
https://twitter.com/AnfieldWatch/status/1528816504501948416
Fabinho missed the Wolves game due to an injury but he was supposed to restart training this week. Bizarrely, he is yet to come back onto the training pitch and the early rumours are suggesting that the midfielder might be a doubt for the final.
This is a major headache for the Liverpool manager because Thiago picked up a knock on Sunday and he too looks set to miss the trip to Paris.
If both Thiago and Fabinho are absent then it’s major chaos for Klopp because a midfield trio of Henderson, Naby Keita and James Milner is not enough to stop the Madrid juggernaut. Fabinho obviously has three more days to make a recovery so Klopp won’t throw in the towel so soon.
The manager has other options like Elliott and Curtis Jones but we doubt if the youngsters will get a run-in from the start.
https://twitter.com/LFC_Da4ry/status/1528767577975144451
Thankfully, the necessary forwards are fully fit and raring to go for Liverpool and we expect the triad of Salah, Sadio Mane and Luis Diaz to start.
UPDATE:
Thankfully, Fabinho has returned to full training on Wednesday so it’s almost certain that the midfielder will start against Real Madrid in the final.
Thiago has also taken part in training on Wednesday and Jurgen Klopp has confirmed the Spaniard has a good chance to feature against Real Madrid.
Liverpool’s predicted line up vs Real Madrid:
Goalkeeper – Alisson.
Defenders – Van Dijk, Joel Matip, Robertson, Alexander-Arnold.
Midfielders – Fabinho/James Milner, Henderson, Naby Keita.
Forwards – Mo Salah, Sadio Mane, Luis Diaz.
