Liverpool could be without Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo for Sunday’s meeting with Manchester City after both forwards returned early from international duty with injuries.
Isak left Sweden’s camp with a thigh problem while Gakpo returned to Liverpool from the Netherlands with an ankle injury. Andoni Iraola confirmed that neither player is currently fit, leaving Liverpool facing further uncertainty in attack with Hugo Ekitike already sidelined by a long-term Achilles injury.
“I think Alex Isak and Cody Gakpo both have had to leave the national teams with injuries,” Iraola said.
“Now it’s a matter of if they are going to recover in time to help us in the next game or not. But right now they are both injured.”
Iraola’s squad could also be without the France centre-back Jeremy Jacquet, who was left out of Monday’s 4-1 win over Belgium with a hamstring strain. The Liverpool manager did not provide an update on Jacquet.
The fitness problems come ahead of one of the biggest tests of Iraola’s first season at Liverpool. His team have yet to lose, with four wins and three draws, but City arrive having won all of their matches so far.
“I think we need to be very, very good if we want to beat City because they’ve been especially offensively scoring a lot of goals lately,” Iraola said.
Liverpool will also have to deal with a City side playing its first match since an independent commission found the club guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules.
Iraola said Liverpool have made progress defensively but need to recover the attacking fluency shown earlier in the season. The 2-2 draw at Newcastle highlighted one of the problems he wants to address, with Liverpool conceding twice on transitions.
“We’ve been controlling the games much more but we lacked a little bit [of] this offensive fluidity that we had in the first game,” he said. “So, now it’s a matter of balancing this a little.”
