Liverpool (H) - Carabao Cup 4th Round - Thu 22nd Dec, 20:00 | Pre-Match Thread

[Gingers Dad]

Seeing as most European leagues don’t start back until mid January and Pep is prioritising the CL I can see why.

Shame as this will be our grandsons(7) first City game.

Mate he'll love it.

 

[richards30]

Seeing as most European leagues don’t start back until mid January and Pep is prioritising the CL I can see why.

Shame as this will be our grandsons(7) first City game.

Some players like Phillips, Grealish, and cancelo hardly played at the World Cup and Phillips would surely benefit for actually having minutes in a city shirt? Plus Akanji and Laporte have been back a while?

 

[Fordyboy46]

Saw a quote from pep saying we will have 4 or 5 1st team players available for this game.

Presumably that means only those who didn't go to the world cup and those out in the group stage.

Surely others could be availablExactly, e.

Saw a quote from pep saying we will have 4 or 5 1st team players available for this game.
Presumably that means only those who didn't go to the world cup and those out in the group stage.
Surely others could be available.

Exactly, no reason why Phillips and Grealish can't be involved as their excesses for England in the World Cup were minimal

 

[Gingers Dad]

Exactly, no reason why Phillips and Grealish can't be involved as their excesses for England in the World Cup were minimal

World Cup has actually done us a favour regarding Phillips and Walker

 

[Tolmie scores]

Who’s not training with the squad? Why is there an injury risk?

I don't know for sure but i think a lot of the WC players would not be / or should not be fully integrated. Quite a few would have come back deflated. For some, playing early to forget it would work but others would probably need more time. Everyone has different mental capacities to cope. Shame this is so early after WC for me. Then again Pep may put out a full strength team.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

I don't know for sure but i think a lot of the WC players would not be / or should not be fully integrated. Quite a few would have come back deflated. For some, playing early to forget it would work but others would probably need more time. Everyone has different mental capacities to cope. Shame this is so early after WC for me. Then again Pep may put out a full strength team.

I don’t buy that to be honest. I don’t think being disappointed is a reason to not play these players. They’ll be dying to get stuck in and get winning things with City.

 

[Didsbury Dave]

Saw a quote from pep saying we will have 4 or 5 1st team players available for this game.
Presumably that means only those who didn't go to the world cup and those out in the group stage.
Surely others could be available.

Did he say that? FFS.

 

[birchwoodgingerste]

Did he say that? FFS.

Yes he will be playing to!:)

 

[City_Sean]

Id expect a strong side. I doubt many of the players who played in the semi will make it, but there's still enough for a very strong XI.

Ortega
Cancelo Akanji Laporte Gomez
KDB Phillips Gundogan
Mahrez Haaland Grealish

 

[MikeF]

I don’t see how it’s any different had the World Cup not been on. They’d have probably been playing more had it not been on!!