Liverpool will be without star goalkeeper Alisson for Sunday’s game against Manchester United at Anfield. The Brazilian ace picked up the injury in the Champions League defeat to Galatasaray and missed the defeat to Chelsea before the international break. He then declined his assignment in Brazil.
The player is currently expected to miss the match against United, with Giorgi Mamadashvili expected to take his place. Alisson is not expected to return for either the Champions League game against Eintracht Frankfurt in midweek or next weekend’s trip to Brentford.
“Alison is absent because he is not training with us,” admitted Arne Slott. “As I always say, it’s very difficult to say[how long he will be out]because there are always positives and negatives in the final stages of rehabilitation. But he won’t play this weekend and he won’t play next week.”
Ryan Gravenbirch has fully recovered from his hamstring problem and is expected to play this weekend, Slott confirmed. Similarly, French centre-back Ibrahima Konate is also expected to join his teammates in training on Friday.
Grafenberg played 45 minutes in the Netherlands’ 4-0 win over Finland on Sunday and was sent off as a precautionary measure at halftime. Konate was discovered to have a muscle problem after the defeat at Stamford Bridge and was sent back from duty in France.
“Ryan is perfectly healthy,” Slott added. “He still has to train twice, but as far as I’m concerned right now, he’s perfectly healthy.”
“We are in a good position with the Dutch national team, if Ronald Koeman can decide to play either Tijani Lijnders or Ryan Grabenbirch.”
“So he played both 45 minutes. Ibou (Konate) came back to us and resumed the session and he will train with us today.”
Slott also confirmed changes to team selection will continue over the coming weeks as more Premier League and Champions League fixtures are added.
“The interesting thing is, you have to bring some players in for playing time, but you can’t have zero to three players a week. So we brought in some players who can change the team,” Slott continued.
“We have more than 11 players because every team has to face a schedule like this. If you rotate, you have to play the same players more. It’s almost impossible to have players play the same position every game, as happened with some players.”
“We have to find a balance. We have been together for a long time. We have Alex (Issac) and Hugo (Ekitike) in our nine and they both know what to do in our system. I like being able to play more than 11 games.”
