CAOIMHIN KELLEHER MAY miss tomorrow’s League Cup semi-final first leg against Arsenal as Jurgen Klopp considers starting Alisson Becker to give him some gametime following a Covid absence.
Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s first leg at Anfield, Klopp said the period of Covid-enforced inactivity for Alisson Becker – who has not played since December 28 – means the Brazil international could be drafted in for this game, which would be his first League Cup appearance of the season.
“Caoimhin is the goalkeeper for this competition but there is a chance that Ali will play tomorrow,” said Klopp.
“I think he needs a game now just because of the situation with Covid and everything when he was out.
“We need to make sure that the boys have as much rhythm as they can get.”
Meanwhile, Liverpool did not ask for their Carabao Cup semi-final to be reduced to a one-off game but manager Klopp believes a solution has to be found in future to reduce fixture congestion.
When his side were drawn against Arsenal in the last four Klopp said he would happily concede home advantage and play a single tie at the Emirates Stadium.
The cancellation last week of what would have been the first leg due to the 48-hour closure of Liverpool’s first-team training ground due to a slew of false positive Covid results has seen the order of the ties now flipped but only added to the chaos which is currently affecting the programme.
Klopp believes it would be helpful to permanently return to last season’s single-match semi-final but does not think the EFL will be keen.
“Covid is around and with the amount of fixtures we have it is really tricky to fit them all in so a second semi-final is actually only good for one thing – it’s for the EFL probably from a financial point of view,” he said.
“But we should or could find a solution in the future, not for this year obviously because we didn’t ask for it, no, just in general.
“I think all top-class people in football, especially the coaches, agree that we have to reduce the amount of games, in the long-term definitely.
The winner will face Chelsea in next month’s final at Wembley.
