Center Back: Joel Matip
Does anyone really care anymore if it is Joel Matip or Dejan Lovren next to van Dijk? Lovren has the bigger range in quality of performance. He can be very good or an error-prone nightmare. While Matip doesn’t have those extremes he is not immune to looking like a duffer with regularity.
There are two reasons why I would plump for Matip against Palace. Firstly he is better on the ball. As we know too well, Roy Hodgson does not set his teams up to keep possession. The Liverpool center backs will see plenty of the ball at their feet on Saturday. In that scenario I prefer to the better ball player which is Matip.
Also who will be picked for the City game? It was Lovren that started in the 4-3 victory against Manchester City at Anfield in January. You have to think Klopp goes as close to the side that dominated City as possible next week.
That leaves Matip to play this weekend as Klopp continues to rotate van Dijk’s partners in the second half of the season.