Liverpool Team News
Liverpool stars Philippe Coutinho and Roberto Firmino will be in a race to be ready for the mammoth clash against Everton on the 1st of April. The Merseyside derby kicks off the Premier League after a two-week absence due to the international break.
The Reds take on Manchester City this weekend in a positive frame of mind. The reason for this possibility is the club’s back-to-back wins in the Premier League. The victories over Arsenal and Burnley will appear meaningless if the club fail to get three points in the next two matches. City are seen as direct competitors for the top three places, while games against Everton are always important.
Coutinho and Firmino are two key players for the Liverpool team, but they will be far away from Anfield during the international break. The two Brazilians are expected to jet to Brazil in order to take part in the FIFA World Cup 2018 qualifiers.
Despite having a comfortable advantage in the World Cup qualification group, Brazil are taking on Uruguay and Paraguay in this international break. The Selecao can extend their four-point advantage over Uruguay to a massive seven points with the victory.
Apart from being involved in plenty of travelling, the two players will also have to be fresh in order to take on Everton. Brazil’s game against Paraguay does not take place until Wednesday morning UK time. Upon conclusion of this event, the two players will have to immediately jet back to Liverpool in order to be available for the Merseyside derby on Saturday. To make matters even tougher, the game is a 5 PM kick off at Anfield. This effectively gives the players with just two days of recovery time, after they will have been involved in a gruelling 6000-mile journey.
Liverpool are expected to ease some of the workload on the players by arranging a chartered flight. While this would cost the club in excess of £150,000, it would be a small price to pay to have two crucial players in the first-team in one of the biggest games of the season.
Victory will put Liverpool closer towards the top four and a qualification to the Champions League. The latter alone is worth in excess of £30 million. Liverpool stuck with this procedure of arranging chartered flights to their best players even during the African Cup of Nations when Sadio Mane had to return in a hurry.
Several months ago, the club decided to share the expenses of a chartered flight with Manchester City and Paris St Germain – clubs with a large contingent of Brazilian and South American players. Another crucial player in the Liverpool team, Sadio Mane will not be travelling much as Senegal take on Nigeria in Barnet and Ivory Coast in Paris.
