Premier LeagueLiverpool v Aston Villa: Team news
For the hosts, Alisson Becker, Federico Chiesa, Harvey Elliott and Diogo Jota are ruled out of Saturday’s 8pm GMT kick-off in the Premier League.
Slot was asked for an update on Jota during his pre-match press conference on Friday and stated that the forward – who has missed the Reds’ last five matches after sustaining an injury against Chelsea last month – is expected to be available again ‘one or two weeks after the international break’.
Villa, meanwhile, will be without midfielder Ross Barkley in L4, and defender Matty Cash also missed their Champions League loss at Club Brugge on Wednesday.
Youri Tielemans is not part of Belgium’s squad for the international window that follows this game, but the visitors are hopeful he will play on Merseyside.
“Tielemans is expected to be fit to face the Reds this weekend before using the international period as rehabilitation,” the visitors’ official website reported of the midfielder’s ‘minor complaint’.
Liverpool head coach Slot told the media that he is not anticipating Emery to spring a tactical surprise, but previous experiences this season mean he will not take that opinion for granted.
“If you ask me now I would say it’s not that difficult [to predict how Villa will play] because Unai Emery has played in a similar style now for years at Aston Villa,” Slot said.
“It’s almost always the same formation, but it sometimes depends on the player that you can have different characteristics, but his style of play, his idea about football, has been the same always.
“Saying this, that also was the situation with Xabi Alonso, who we studied for I don’t know how many games but never once did he come up with the idea of playing [Victor] Boniface as a left winger and playing without a No.9 [for Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday].
“That he hadn’t done at all before we played them, but that’s maybe also a compliment – most managers feel that we have a very good team so they think they have to change their game plan, not their playing style, a bit.
“If you ask me now do I expect Unai to change a lot, I would not expect that because he never did this, not if he played [Manchester] City and also not when he played Liverpool in the past few years.
“But in terms of personnel he can change a bit, he has different options in the full-back [areas], different options on the wings, but it’s also been a 4-4-2 that he’s been playing for many years now.”
Alexis Mac Allister goes into this weekend one yellow card away from receiving a one-match suspension in the Premier League.
Villa head to Anfield having played 24 hours later than Liverpool in the midweek round of Champions League fixtures. The Reds were also at home to Leverkusen, while the Villans had to travel to Belgium.
Emery, though, dismissed the notion that his side may have been hampered by this scheduling quirk.
He told the media on Friday afternoon: “If we want to play in the Champions League or in Europe, if we want to be contenders for a trophy, we have to play three matches a week.
“If we are not able to play, focusing mentally and physically in this direction, we’re not going to get our objective. We’re training this afternoon and we’re going to prepare the match with the players and they’re going to be ready to play, mentally and physically.
“Hopefully on the field we can show our capacity to face them, competing and with the possibility to get points.”
Villa’s head coach was also quizzed on the differences between preparing to face a Reds team led by Slot rather than his predecessor Jürgen Klopp.
“We are analysing them and how they are playing, and they are playing really, really well,” Emery noted.
“Their style and their idea in some tactical things has maybe changed, but they are playing with the same players, they are playing very well and their idea is clear. This is the same power they had before with their structure tactically. Offensively they’re a really strong team. Collectively they are in their way and individually as well.
“Tomorrow is a really huge challenge for us to stop them, to play with personality. We are analysing and building the team but of course we have to compete if we want to get the level we had last year.
“We are more or less keeping it but we have to be stronger in some circumstances, in everything: tactically, mentally, emotionally. We are building the team with different players and building our structure. We are in this process.”
Last match
Liverpool 4-0 Bayer Leverkusen (November 5): Kelleher, Alexander-Arnold, Konate, Van Dijk, Tsimikas, Jones, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Salah, Diaz, Gakpo.
Club Brugge 1-0 Aston Villa (November 6): Martinez, Konsa, Carlos, Mings, Maatsen, Kamara, Tielemans, Bailey, McGinn, Rogers, Watkins.
