Liverpool look to head into the international break with a fourth straight Premier League win when they travel to take on Aston Villa.
Liverpool's luck seems to be changing with a squad that seems to be depleting by the hour. After Friday night's news that Sadio Mané, tested positive for COVID-19 rocked Reds’ fans who had otherwise been looking forward to seeing Liverpool travel to Villa Park on Sunday evening. Mané is the third Liverpool player to test positive and go into quarantine since the season began.
THEN we hear that our rock between the sticks, Alisson has picked up an injury in training and will miss this game also. The severity of his injury is not yet known but indications are that he could be out for sometime.
Nonetheless, the show must go on, and so the rest of the team remains focused on extending their perfect run in the Premier League against Aston Villa.
This is the final match before the October international break. Maintaining good momentum into the break is always very useful, especially this break where tensions will be running higher than usual due to pandemic concerns.
Aston Villa have only played two league games this season, but they’ve won both and kept two clean sheets against Fulham and Sheffield United. This is a significant change in fortunes in the early going of this season, compared to Dean Smith’s side last season when they barely escaped relegation.
New Liverpool player Diogo Jota will likely get his first Premier League start due to the absence of Mané in the line up. Jota opened his account with the team within 10 minutes of being substituted into the game against Arsenal. There will be some excitement to see how Jota slots into that attack with Salah and Firmino for 90 minutes.
Probable starting line-up:
Adrian
TAA, Gomez, VVD, Robbo
Wij, Fab, Keita
Salah, Bobby, Jota
