Liverpool vs Newcastle: Is now the time to rest Roberto Firmino?

Liverpool take on Newcastle on Saturday before playing Napoli on Tuesday. Is now the time to rest Roberto Firmino in light of that congestion?

Now the first international break is over, the Reds face a run of seven fixtures between the 14th of September and 5th of October. It’s going to be exhausting.

Jurgen Klopp will need to manage his squad carefully. As well as those seven, the players involved in the international break will have featured twice, before coming back and beginning that massive run.

With that in mind, should Klopp rest one of the most in-demand Liverpool players around – Firmino?

Unless he’s injured, Bobby never misses a Premier League game. Between 29 November 2017 and 24 February 2019 the forward started every single match. That’s an incredible figure and it shows how important he is to Klopp.

With that in mind, it would be strategic for the gaffer to give Firmino a rest and allow him some proper time to recover before the Champions League game. Newcastle represents a weaker standard of opposition and it would allow Divock Origi to come back into the side after he played well when Sadio Mane was out.

Their defence has also been poor, and bar one miraculous effort against Tottenham it looks pretty porous. Even Norwich City managed to put four past them.

Mane and Mohamed Salah weren’t required for their national side during the break and so they’ll be fresh and ready to terrorise the Magpies defence. With that in mind, Liverpool will still have a strong forward line and the inclusion of Origi doesn’t necessarily have to mean a backwards step.

As he’s proven already this season, the Belgian has been making improvements to his game and can be a threat around the goal – even if Liverpool will lose some of Firmino’s notorious ability when he drops deep or presses.

Other rotations could be made around the ground as well, with Rhian Brewster, Xherdan Shaqiri and even James Milner keen for more game time.