Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp will go on the attack against Red Star Belgrade meaning we predict that Fabinho will not be in the starting eleven.
This is a must win Champions League game. Every home game in the competition has to be viewed that way. It is very hard to progress from the group stage if you don’t beat the weakest team in the group on your own turf. Jurgen Klopp knows it and that means bad news for Fabinho.
The Brazilian midfielder has yet to make a start for the Reds in the Champions League or Premier League. It took him until the 69th minute of the ninth game of the campaign to even make his league debut.
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This is a dramatically different scenario to the one Liverpool envisioned in the summer. When the anchor man was bought from Monaco for £40 million – at the time, the second most expensive purchase in the club’s history – he was predicted to walk into the side with Naby Keita forming a new look midfield.
Klopp has been hesitant to trust Fabinho in any game that has mattered. All the talk from Melwood is that he is a great player who just needs a process of adaption.
With the news that both Jordan Henderson and Keita will miss tomorrow’s game the assumption is that Fabinho will come in for his first start in a big game.
That will make a lot of sense but I do not think it is a foregone conclusion. The manager went for Xherdan Shaqiri next to Henderson and James Milner against Huddersfield. A similar tactic maybe applied again or perhaps Adam Lallana will shift into the middle where he was most effective a few seasons back.
Much will depend on Milner’s fitness and ability to play two games in a week. There has been much surprise over Klopp’s recent team sheets and I expect we could see some hair pulling tomorrow if Fabinho is once again left on the bench.