{"id":6666,"date":"2026-05-10T03:18:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=6666"},"modified":"2026-05-10T03:18:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:18:41","slug":"isak-returns-as-ngumoha-starts-for-liverpool-against-chelsea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=6666","title":{"rendered":"Isak returns as Ngumoha starts for Liverpool against Chelsea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>Alexander Isak has returned from injury to take his place on the Liverpool bench, while Rio Ngumoha and Giorgi Mamardashvili both start against Chelsea on Saturday afternoon. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Sweden international missed last week\u2019s defeat to Manchester United with a leg injury, but has recovered in time to be named among the substitutes.<\/p>\n<p>Arne Slot makes three changes to his team as Mamardashvili replaces Freddie Woodman in goals after recovering from a knee injury that sidelined him for three weeks.<\/p>\n<p>Rio Ngumoha comes into the starting lineup in place of Florian Wirtz, who was dealing with an illness during the week. Andy Robertson has been replaced by Milos Kerkez.<\/p>\n<p>Mo Salah and Alisson Becker both remain on the treatment table and unavailable for selection.<\/p>\n<p>With six points separating Liverpool in third from Bournemouth in sixth, the Reds can seal a top five place and qualification for the UEFA Champions League if they beat the Blues and the Cherries drop points against Fulham.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Chelsea have made five changes to the starting lineup at Anfield, including a first start of the season for defender Levi Colwill.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013\u00a0Chelsea make five changes as Colwill starts against Liverpool<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong>Isak returns as Ngumoha starts for Liverpool against Chelsea<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-cgjb6m-Keyword e2vephq0\">Liverpool XI<\/b>: Mamardashvili, Jones, Konate, van Dijk, Kerkez, Gravenberch, Mac Allister, Frimpong, Szoboszlai, Ngumoha, Gakpo<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Subs: Woodman, Gomez, Isak, Chiesa, Robertson, Nyoni, Morrison, Wright, Ndiaye.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-cgjb6m-Keyword e2vephq0\">Chelsea XI<\/b>: Jorgensen, Gusto, Fofana, Hato, Colwill, Cucurella, Andrey Santos, Caicedo, Fernandez, Palmer, Joao Pedro<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Subs: Slonina, James, Acheampong, Adarabioyo, Chalobah, Lavia, Eboue, Kavuma-McQueen, Delap<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Read \u2013 English clubs achieve historic European final feat<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>See Also \u2013 Five spicy fixtures you must watch this weekend<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>Follow the Football Faithful on Social Media:<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Facebook\u00a0|\u00a0Instagram\u00a0| <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyFaithful_\">Twitter<\/a> | YouTube | TikTok<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.tiktok.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alexander Isak has returned from injury to take his place on the Liverpool bench, while&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}