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Match Preview
Liverpool will seek to end a four-match losing run when they visit Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League on Wednesday.
After a red-hot start to the season, Liverpool’s form has nosedived, Arne Slot’s men losing to Crystal Palace, Chelsea and Manchester United in the Premier League while also coming undone at the hands of Galatasaray in the Champions League.
Liverpool have not lost five games in a row since September 1953, and a continuation of this current run would ramp up the pressure on manager Arne Slot and an expensively assembled group of players, with the Reds’ free-spending summer not producing the anticipated results.
Alexander Isak has scored just once, in an EFL Cup win over Southampton, following his British-record move from Newcastle United. Similarly, Florian Wirtz has been criticised for his form following a £100million transfer from Bayer Leverkusen.
Wirtz provided an assist in the Community Shield in August but has not registered a goal involvement since. Full-backs Jeremie Frimpong and Milos Kerkez have also endured difficult starts.
The one signing who has hit the ground running is the man Liverpool signed from Eintracht, Hugo Ekitike.
Including the Community Shield, Ekitike has scored five goals for Liverpool, and he’ll hope to have the chance to open his Champions League account against his former club.
Even with their dip in form, Liverpool have only failed to score once this season, and Slot does not sense that his team is losing confidence amid a downturn in results.
“Do we lose confidence? I cannot see it yet, because every single game we’ve lost, we were able to create in the second half an unbelievable amount of chances,” Slot said after the 2-1 defeat to United.
“If you look back at all the three games we’ve lost in the Premier League, if you just put all the highlights [next to] each other, you would say it’s hardly possible that they lose this game.
“So if we can keep producing what we are doing and do a few things a little bit better, then there is every reason to expect that we start to win football games again.
“But I cannot promise you that on Wednesday evening we are again able to create eight, nine or 10 open chances. I hope so, and with the players we have then it will lead in the end to us scoring more goals.”
There is cause to believe Eintracht will provide ideal opposition for Liverpool as they aim to get back on track.
Outside of the DFB-Pokal, Eintracht have not kept a single clean sheet this season and have conceded at least three goals in five games.
At the same time, only Bayern Munich have scored more goals than Eintracht’s 19 in the Bundesliga. Dino Toppmoller’s men opened their Champions League campaign with a 5-1 win over Galatasaray, before losing by the same scoreline to Atletico Madrid.
There should, therefore, be plenty of entertainment in store at the Waldstadion, but serious questions will be asked of Slot and his players if they fail to take advantage of a clear opportunity to stop the rot.
Team news for Eintracht Frankfurt v Liverpool
The big fitness question for Liverpool concerns Ryan Gravenberch, who limped out of the defeat to United with an apparent ankle injury. Goalkeeper Alisson remains unavailable.
Curtis Jones may come into the midfield for Gravenberch, while it would be no surprise to see Slot restore Ekitike to the starting XI in place of the misfiring Isak.
Eintracht will be without Oscar Hojlund because of a muscle problem, while right-back Elias Baum has a hamstring injury.
Expected line-ups for Eintracht Frankfurt v Liverpool
Eintracht Frankfurt: Santos; Kristensen, Koch, Theate, Brown; Larsson, Skhiri; Doan, Uzun, Bahoya; Burkardt
Liverpool: Mamardashvili; Szoboszlai, Gomez, Van Dijk, Robertson; Jones, Mac Allister; Salah, Wirtz, Gakpo; Ekitike
How to watch Eintracht Frankfurt v Liverpool: TV channel, online stream
Eintracht Frankfurt v Liverpool kicks off at 8pm UK time on Wednesday.
It will be broadcast on TNT Sports 1 and is available to stream via the Discovery Plus app and on Sky Go for Sky customers with a TNT package included.
The stats for Eintracht Frankfurt v Liverpool
- Liverpool have only lost one of their last 15 matches against German teams in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League (W10 D4), a 4-2 defeat away to Bayer Leverkusen in April 2002.
- The Reds have won the most recent five such games by an aggregate scoreline of 12-1, and beat RB Leipzig 1-0 and Bayer Leverkusen 4-0 lasrt season.
- Having failed to win any of their first six away matches against German teams in the European Cup/UEFA Champions League (D3 L3), Liverpool have won each of the last four in succession.
- Liverpool have lost two of their last three games in the league phase of the Champions League (W1), suffering as many defeats as they had in their previous 30 matches of the league phase/group stage (W26 D2).
Prediction
Shaky at the back and failing to fire up front, there’s plenty of reasons to believe Liverpool could come unstuck again. Still, there’s an evident gap in quality, and it’s one that should be enough for them to get back to winning ways.
Prediction: Eintracht Frankfurt 2-3 Liverpool
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: 101greatgoals.com
