Liverpool and Everton stars claim Merseyside Derby is 'game of the season'
- by Grant Boone
- in Sports
- — Apr 7, 2018
This is the game and it's my first derby here. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is likely to be deployed in attack in the absence of Salah, with Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino making up the numbers upfront.
There's an opportunity to get one over on Liverpool here, though, especially if Klopp does leave a number of big guns out with the second leg against City in mind.
Klopp was asked if he had one eye on the Man City game when it comes to selecting his team.
Everton, in ninth place with 40 points, come into this game just about emerging from a terrible run of form that included no wins in seven games in all competitions.
Before that Sam Allardyce's charges had chalked up back-to-back wins over Brighton and Stoke City to give themselves the slimmest of chances of qualifying for next season's Europa league via the league standings.
Idrissa Gana Gueye should be fit to return to the Everton side for the Merseyside derby after the influential midfielder missed last weekend's defeat by Manchester City with a hamstring problem but took part in a full training session on Friday.
"It's bragging rights for the people of the city and I know there are a lot of Evertonians in the city - some more than Liverpool supporters I have to say!"
"It's an advantage we could possibly take". But Jürgen has a very strong squad and they haven't let him down all season. Jurgen Klopp's side were three goals to the good by halftime. Everton have been shown 14 of these red cards, also the most for one side against another in the Premier League. They have a very good home record.
The two sides met earlier on in the season when they played out a 1-1 draw at Anfield as a Wayne Rooney penalty cancelled out a stunning first half strike from Mohamed Salah. They have it all together, except Gylfi Sigurdsson is injured.
"Everton, fresh from their own football lesson against Pep Guardiola's team, will hope Liverpool's physical exertions will help their cause". Each Evertonian thinks at Goodison they have an extra percentage of desire. "We need to be ready for that 100%".
West Brom were above us when I got here. "But we need to be ready for hard challenges, it's a derby".
He repeated the line that 'he didn't want to give too much away' however he hinted that he didn't have the luxury of rotating players due to the mini-injury crisis that Liverpool have.
Rotation options are fairly thin on the ground, however, with Adam Lallana, Joel Matip, Joe Gomez and Emre Can all struggling with injuries.
All Everton's other injury problems are longer-term but defender Ashley Williams is available again after completing a three-match ban following his dismissal against Burnley.
