Liverpool are all set to take on Manchester United in the FA Cup on Sunday.
The Reds continued their march in all competitions last night, tearing past Sparta Prague to win 11-2 on aggregate. They’ll face Atalanta in the next round of the Europa League.
With that safely in the bag, they have another chance to make progress at Old Trafford. A place at Wembley is at stake.
Despite their good recent form though, Liverpool are still missing one or two key players. Thankfully, they’ve had a couple return recently, too. And speaking about the squad’s situation around injuries in his pre-match press conference today, Jurgen Klopp confirmed that Mohamed Salah will once again be ready to play this weekend.
“Mo is definitely ready,” Klopp said, before giving a less positive update on Ibrahima Konate. “Ibou didn’t train today, we have to see if he can train tomorrow but it will be a tight, tight race we probably lose.
“Bobby [Clark] felt much better. Got a knock there, a little swelling, but it’s not more serious. Ryan [Gravenberch] trained again.”
Salah ready for United rumble
It’s good to hear that Salah is ready to go again so soon after playing 90 minutes. It hadn’t been the plan to have the Egyptian on the pitch for the full game, but that’s what ended up happening.
Klopp said afterwards that he’d actually told Salah to stop defending completely towards the end of the match.
As an experienced player who looks after is body supremely, Mo doesn’t need telling twice how to rest and recover.
As a result, you’d now expect that Salah will be in tip top shape to start at Old Trafford. Having scored seven goals in his past four visits there, that could be bad news for United.
Happily, having played just four times for Liverpool in 2024 before last night, Mo was back on the scoresheet against Sparta Prague.
The £34m man also bagged himself three assists on Thursday night and therefore has his eye well and truly back in.
The absence of Konate is still a blow, mind you. Although given how well Jarell Quansah did up against Manchester City last week, that shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
Ibou will be back soon enough, but for this one, we’d rather have Mo available.
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