As Liverpool head to Burnley for a New Year’s Day clash one of the match’s main story lines is festive period fixture congestion. Hence, Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp maintains he’ll have to make make some changes to his lineup from the side that beat Leicester City 2-1 on Saturday.
Klopp says the added workload this time of year is getting more familiar though, and it’s something his opponent must deal with as well.
“The good news is that Burnley played [on Saturday] as well. I don’t think they got the point without running so they have the same thing to do and then that’s fair play. It’s how it is,” the German said.
“It’s not the best thing to do, I think, but it’s absolutely OK. We will be ready because we have to be ready. That’s not a friendly game for us. It’s a very important game for us.”
So what starting XI lineup changes could we see? Well, the German has already confirmed that Simon Mignolet will return in goal, and the club released a statement that Mohamed Salah is a doubt, so there’s two positions right off the bat. Also, here’s the full match fitness/injury report.
Here’s the rest of what we came up with for our Liverpool starting XI prediction:
Philippe Coutinho, Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane
Georginio Wijnaldum, Emre Can, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain
Andrew Robertson, Ragnar Klavan, Joel Matip, Joe Gomez
Simon Mignolet
By the way, Happy New Year to all. Enjoy the match!
Injury report: go to this link
Odds: Liverpool- 1/2, Burnley- 13/2, Draw- 7/2
Prediction: Liverpool 4, Burnley 3
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and the Tribune company’s blogging community Chicago Now.
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