Jurgen Klopp has suggested Liverpool will be at full strength for the club’s FA Cup third-round tie at Arsenal this weekend.
Liverpool begin their FA Cup campaign with a difficult draw away to Arsenal, with the two teams currently competing for the Premier League table.
The Reds have rotated in early rounds of cup competition in recent campaigns, and face an EFL Cup semi-final with Fulham in midweek. However, Klopp has suggested the nature of the tie means Liverpool will need their strongest available side.
“It is probably the most tricky draw you can get,” Klopp said at his pre-match press conference.
“It will be a tough one, but the game here was a good one, so let’s hope that we can show a good performance there as well.
“I don’t know if Arsenal is a game to rotate. I don’t know if we have 100% the opportunity to do it. It’s not as if we have the biggest squad available.
“We have players available and we can line the team up 100%. A good team, and I think that is what we will do. If that looks then afterwards like rotation, then I don’t know that.
“Three days later we have another game, that is true. But we can think about that game when the [FA Cup tie] is over. That is what we do usually. Both have the same importance – there is nothing in between. We want to win these games, we want to go to the final but we want to go to the next round as well.”
Liverpool will be without Mohamed Salah and Wataru Endo for the game as the duo depart to compete at the Africa Cup of Nations and Asian Cup respectively, while Klopp confirmed Dominik Szoboszlai is out after the Hungarian suffered a hamstring injury against Newcastle.
“It is an injury…muscle, hamstring. I don’t know, we have to see. Dom is very positive. He doesn’t have a lot of pain, but we have to wait a little bit.
“No chance obviously for Sunday, not for Wednesday, and then we will see after that. Hopefully he might be back, but we don’t know.
“Besides that, nothing else really happened. The rest was yesterday available and fully fit, so let’s hope that stays the same and we will have to make a choice.”
