Liverpool’s assistant boss, Pep Lijnders, has stated that the club will wait until the last minute to make a decision on whether Mohamed Salah, Darwin Nunez, and Dominik Szoboszlai will be available for Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Chelsea. The trio are the only players on the club’s recent absentees list who have a chance of playing at Wembley. Salah and Nunez were absent from the midweek win over Luton Town due to minor muscle problems, while Szoboszlai has been sidelined since January due to a hamstring issue.
Lijnders has said, “Dom, Darwin, and Mo, we have to really see. We have two more days. Today’s session and tomorrow’s session. In the last minute, we will check. If they can be there, it will be great to be honest.”
Several other players are also expected to be unavailable for the match. Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alisson Becker, Curtis Jones, and Diogo Jota are not expected to be fit until after the March international break. Thiago, Stefan Bajcetic, Ben Doak, and Joel Matip also remain sidelined.
Lijnders added, “Curtis has a high ankle strain. He will be back in and around the international break. Ali has a muscle injury, after the international break, it will really take time. Trent has a lateral ligament issue. Jots has a medial ligament problem. Both will be out until after the international break too.”
Despite the injuries, Lijnders remains optimistic, saying, “The good thing we always did in the past is we look to what we have. You need to accept what you have and not look at what you don’t have, it brought us success in the past and we try to keep that up. I feel really happy with that. With a few injuries, you get young players and players who didn’t play five games in a row but who can show up now. That’s really cool. This season is a season where we have created three or four new teams in a season, it’s a compliment to our squad and the academy.”
