'Fantastic' Liverpool player missed training today despite playing against Chelsea - journalist
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Liverpool will head to Germany on Tuesday as they prepare to face RB Leipzig in the Champions League.
The Reds have a perfect record in Europe this season having beaten AC Milan and Bologna so far.
Sitting joint top of the Bundesliga and unbeaten after seven games, Leipzig will pose another threat to Liverpool’s 100 per cent win rate.
Sandwiched in between big Premier League clashes against Chelsea and Arsenal, it looks likely that Arne Slot will rotate his Liverpool squad for the game in Leipzig.
Some changes will unfortunately be forced upon the Liverpool head coach, though. After Sunday’s narrow win over Chelsea, the Reds have some bumps and bruises to deal with.
As they sauntered out at the AXA Training Centre on Tuesday for their final session before playing Leipzig, the extent of their injury list for the Champions League game became clear.
Five players miss Liverpool training
Liverpool have been relatively lucky with injuries so far this season. There has of course been the blow of losing Alisson Becker to a hamstring problem, but otherwise the big players have stayed fit.
With the goalkeeper set to be side lined for a few more weeks yet, it was not a surprise to see that Alisson was not training with the group on Tuesday.
It was also hardly a shock that Harvey Elliott was still missing. The 21-year-old is still recovering from what is becoming a slightly lengthy issue and is not ready to be involved yet.
Another who was forced out of Tuesday’s warm-up was Diogo Jota. Jota picked up a knocked against Chelsea and was substituted after only half an hour.
READ MORE: Arsenal dealt ‘huge blow’ ahead of facing Liverpool in the Premier League
Slot claimed that Jota would be unlikely to face RB Leipzig straight after the Chelsea game and as a result his absence from training on Tuesday was also to be expected.
Liverpool were given a hopeful update on Federico Chiesa’s fitness ahead of the RB Leipzig clash, but the Italian was also not seen out on the pitches in Kirkby.
Finally, Conor Bradley also missed the session having been unable to feature in the matchday squad on Sunday. Taking to X on Tuesday afternoon, journalist David Lynch confirmed the Liverpool absentees.
“No sign of Diogo Jota, Conor Bradley or Federico Chiesa in training ahead of Liverpool's trip to RB Leipzig,” says Lynch. “Alisson Becker and Harvey Elliott also absent, of course.”
Darwin Nunez set for Liverpool chance
Aside from Alisson, obviously, Jota is the only one of these five injured players who has been a regular in Slot’s starting XI this season.
The Portuguese has not been perfect, but he has still been the man with the shirt ahead of Darwin Nunez.
There has been plenty of evidence as to why Slot has decided upon this course of action. Jota’s movement against Crystal Palace was deemed ‘fantastic‘ by Joe Cole earlier this month and the 27-year-old is still a potent finisher.
But with Nunez also offering interesting attributes, it has never felt as though Jota was completely secure in his starting berth.
It remains to be seen how long the No.20 will miss, of course, but at the very least Nunez now has the RB Leipzig game to send a message to Slot about his place in the team.
