Liverpool handed timely £154m injury boost that could be bad news for Chelsea

Chelsea travel to Anfield on Saturday afternoon in the Premier League with the Blues looking to keep their fading European hopes alive with a positive result on Merseyside

Alexander Isak and Giorgi Mamardashvili will both trained on Friday ahead of potential returns to the Liverpool squad for Saturday’s clash with Chelsea.

The Blues, who have been beaten in their last six Premier League matches, travel to Anfield this weekend hoping to put an end to their horrendous run of form. In their way stand Liverpool, who are looking to all but secure Champions League football with a victory against Calum McFarlane’s team.

Reds head coach Arne Slot has been boosted with the potential return of club-record signing Isak, who missed last weekend’s defeat to Manchester United with a groin injury. Slot is also set to welcome back Mamardashvili to the squad after the Georgian goalkeeper missed the last couple of matches through injury – with Liverpool set to welcome back £154million (combined transfer fees of the two) back to the squad.

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However, Mohamed Salah and Alisson Becker are a little bit further away from returning for Liverpool.

“Alex trained with us again, only yesterday for the first time, so that is a positive,” said Slot on Friday afternoon. “Yesterday, he did part of it, so hopefully he can do part of it, or all of it, today and let’s see how we’re going to use him tomorrow.”

“Alisson, not yet, he hasn’t trained with us yet but he is very close to. Giorgi will train with us today for the first time, so let’s see how he is going to react.

“Mo has not trained with us yet, but is also, like Ali, getting very, very, very close to training with us.”

Ibrahima Konate and Florian Wirtz both missed training earlier in the week but are expected to be included in Slot’s squad: “Ibou had a personal reason, but he was there yesterday and again today. Florian was a bit unwell but he trained with us yesterday also.”

While Chelsea are in a dire run of form, Slot is still expecting a really difficult challenge when the teams go head-to-head on Saturday. Slot lost two of his three games against former Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca and the Dutchman believes interim boss McFarlane plays in a similar style to the Italian.

“It’s always a difficult game for both teams because there is so much quality on both ends,” admitted Slot. “It doesn’t matter that much at the moment about how much you have lost, or how much you have won, it’s a game between a lot of very good individual players. Let’s hope we have a very good team performance as well because that usually helps individuals as well.”

The Liverpool boss continued: “Absolutely (he knows what to expect from Chelsea), because all managers have their own ideas about football, they’ve had three this season. I think their current manager is closer to what Maresca usually did, so he has a very clear identity in how he plays.

“It’s exactly clear what to expect – it’s usually the three-box-three they are playing with. It depends a little bit with which players they are using; how they fill in the positions. They have a very clear identity – as they did under Rosenior – but also a very clear identity under this manager.”