After winning their home debut with a dominating performance reigning champions Leicester City, Liverpool FC heads on the road Friday to face off against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. To read Jurgen Klopp’s pre-match comments, in which he referred to Chelsea forward Diego Costa as “a real warrior” and “world class” go here.
Editor’s note: this Liverpool starting XI prediction and corresponding analysis was composed by Will Willems (@willdub88)
Here is the link to the Chelsea FC starting XI prediction.
Simon Mignolet keeps his job in the net. Loris Karius is getting closer, but Mignolet has played well in recent weeks. He made a key save on Jaime Vardy with the game still in doubt last weekend.
Dejan Lovren was a scratch against Leicester after having his eye swollen shut from a knock in practice. He is good to go now and that is good for Liverpool after watching Lucas have a major blunder that resulted in a Jaime Vardy goal. The rest of the defense remains the same after two strong performances in a row.
Emre Can is back in training but not fit enough to play. That makes the decision easy for Klopp, whose trio of Lallana, Henderson and Wijnaldum have played well together the past two weeks.
The biggest question marks come with what Liverpool will do in the front-3.
It had been Coutinho, Firmino and Mane for the two games that they were all healthy. Last week, with Coutinho coming back late from Brazilian qualifiers, he started on the bench, and Sturridge lead the line. The Reds looked great going forward in scoring four against Leicester. Maybe it was Klopp’s decision to turn change the color of the goal nets from red to white?!
We predict Liverpool goes back to the lineup they used against Arsenal and Spurs this Friday, with Sturridge coming off the bench if needed.
GK Simon Mignolet
RB Nathanial Clyne – CB Joel Matip – CB Dejan Lovren – LB James Milner
MF Georginio Wijnaldum – MF Jordan Henderson – MF Adam Lallana
RW Sadio Mane – FW Roberto Firmino – LW Phillipe Coutinho
As always, feel free to post your own Liverpool starting XI in the comments section below. Speak your mind on the formations and line-ups that are already presented here for your discussion.