In fairness to the 27 BBC pundits who don’t rate Liverpool’s chances very highly, Jurgen Klopp still has a long way to go to prove them wrong. As for Gary Neville, the Reds manager may be feeling a little self-conscious ahead of Liverpool and Manchester United.
Marseille always appear a ghostly image when talking about Sunday’s game. The former defender moaned loudly after falling behind in Spurs’ win over Newcastle last weekend.
Not only did they bow out of the Champions League after suffering an embarrassing defeat to Bournemouth, but the memory of that 7-0 defeat is still fresh in their minds. Not only that, Neville probably knew before the match that he was going to be pinned. Jamie Carragher dug up an old tweet from his Sky Sports team-mate this week, with the former United defender saying: “Klopp needs to rebuild an aging squad but CL haven’t lost a lot of money and he’s not capable of doing that. Required.” Or 2!”You can imagine the reaction after United’s early exit from Europe this week.
But that wasn’t all Neville had to say about Liverpool in the summer, with an even bolder comment made in August on The Overlap. “If you look at certain players, I would take Manchester United as an example: Fernandes, Mount, Casemiro, Eriksen. I think Klopp will now change Manchester United’s midfield.”Oh, I’m Gary. We were a bit shocked there, weren’t we?All four of the players he mentioned are unlikely to play at Anfield on Sunday. Mason Mount, Casemiro and Christian Eriksen are ruled out through injury, as is Bruno Fernandes.
Before we dwell too much on the 10 point difference in the table, this is an opportunity to show how wrong Neville is. At the time, Liverpool were already focusing on aging and potential injuries, so why would they want to trade Mount, Casemiro and Eriksen?As for Fernandes, there’s no doubting his ability, but would Klopp want a player as furious as the Portuguese alongside him? If you can’t believe he won’t easily sign up for one of the biggest games of the season, when can you?In fairness to Neville, his comments came before Liverpool completed their summer spending spree.
Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenburch are still out, but even without the duo, there is every right to raise eyebrows about the former United defender.With Alexis McAllister, Dominic Soboslai, Curtis Jones and Harvey Elliott, Liverpool had the ingredients to successfully overhaul their midfield. Mc Allister is of course expected to miss out on Sunday, but Klopp is clear he is not worried about his potential replacement, and rightly so given his results this season.Could Erik Ten Hag say the same about his chances? Not. It could be another long weekend for Neville.
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