With injuries in midfield, it could be the perfect time for 19-year-old star to step in - regular minutes promised from Klopp

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has injuries to contend with as he decides his starting line-up against Crystal Palace tonight.

With Thiago limping off against Fulham last week and being ruled out for 4-6 weeks, more bad news was set to follow.

It was reported on Friday that Joel Matip sat out of training with an injury-related issue. This means that Matip is set to miss Liverpool’s first game at Anfield for the 2022-23 season.

Fellow centre-back Ibrahima Konate was also ruled out for up to four weeks before the season kicked off - this leaves Jurgen Klopp with three options remaining to fill two positions in his side.

Defensive set-up; Gomez back in?

Virgil van Dijk will continue to be the first choice in the defence but the question now is, who will partner him?

That answer must be Joe Gomez with Nat Phillips being the backup option - with the club postponing any potential move away for Phillips until after the other centrebacks return to full fitness.

Since playing a big part in his team winning the Premier League title during the 2019-20 season, Gomez has found himself out of favour.

Due to recurring injury issues, Gomez missed out on many games and in that time Matip and Konate have performed extremely well.

During their game against Arsenal last week, Crystal Palace continually looked for long passes over the top of the right full-back meaning Wilfred Zaha could find himself in plenty of space behind Alexander-Arnold on the counterattack.

With Gomez likely to play on that right-hand side of the defence, his job will be to cover this space.

Having a lot more pace than Matip will allow Gomez to get across to these areas much quicker.

It will be important too as Palace's central defender Joachim Andersen showed a great ability to find the perfect pass into these areas of the pitch.

Nunez in line to start?

Another selection headache facing Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp is the centre-forward position. While Roberto Firmino did start the game against Fulham, he was very quiet and substituted early into the second half.

New signing Darwin Núñez changed the game when he came on, surely doing enough to earn a place in the team for this upcoming game.

His ability to run in behind a defence gives them something completely different to worry about. The last thing a defender wants is for a ball to go in behind him and make him turn, especially with Nunez's pace.

Núñez has shown clever movement and a willingness to chase down any ball over the top of a defence. Having this threat in behind should force Crystal Palace to drop deeper and concede territory to the Reds.

Midfield selections

The key area of this game could well be the midfield. With Klopp facing a tough decision on who to select following a poor performance from his engine room last week - it is a make-or-break call.

With pressure on the team to get three points on the board, it is a massive decision for Klopp.

Elliot, who signed a new long-term deal last week, could be in line for regular minutes starting from tonight due to their current list of injuries.

Elliot should be joined in midfield by Fabinho and captain Jordan Henderson.