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Saints Without Three First Teamers Tonight: Liverpool Without Six !
Monday, 4th Jan 2021 10:03

Saints are struggling tonight with injuries and Covid 19 problems for the visit of Liverpool, but the Merseyside club have double that number on the side lines at the moment, however they do have one of their other long term injuries back in contention.

Hopefully the number of players each club have out injured for the game at St Mary's this evening is not a score prediction, but between them Saints and Liverpool could almost put out a full side from those who will miss the game through injury or in Alex McCarthy's case, self isolating after contracting covid 19.

The good news for Saints is that McCarthy aside there are no new names on sick parade, Nathan Redmond is still not quite ready with his hamstring injury and Jannik Vestergaard is likely to be out for another month at least.

But Danny Ings seems to have had no ill effects from his appearance against West Ham United and with six days more to strengthen the hamstring he should be back to 100% for the game this evening and hopefully will get back to scoring ways.

Liverpool though have bigger problems especially at the back, the Reds remain without long-term injury absentees Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez.

Joel Matip also misses out again with an adductor injury, while Diogo Jota, Naby Keita and Kostas Tsimikas are all also missing, although Tsimikas has yet to make his Premier League debut since his £12 million move from Willem II in the summer, so far only playing in the Champions League and League Cup.

Likely to be back for them though is Thiago Alcantara who came on as a sub at Newcastle last week for a 20 minute cameo, his first action since October.

But Liverpool have plenty of options in midfield it is at the back they are suffering, ex Saint Virgil Van Dijk is the man that turned them from also rans in the Premier League to the Champions and with him likely to miss the rest of the season it will is a big blow for them.

A glimmer of hope tonight, but if we can keep them out we can cause them a lot of problems up at the other end and hopefully end a run of six straight defeats to the Anfield side.

Photo: Action Images



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dirk_doone added 10:27 - Jan 4
Yes, hopefully, tonight Fraser Forster will keep his 5th consecutive clean sheet v Liverpool and get his 6th successive game without defeat against them.
7

SaintNick added 10:40 - Jan 4
Good to see someone point out Forster's good performances here instead of harping on about how bad he is
1

AirFlorida added 10:42 - Jan 4
FF, England's number 1: or number 13 or un-used sub.
0

Jesus_02 added 11:08 - Jan 4
McCarthy has been excellent and i'm worried to be honest. Of course Ralph could have kept Gunn and loaned Fraser out so lets have a bit of faith in that decision. I hope he can turn in the kind of performance that he has recently for Celtic.
1

TimSaint added 11:39 - Jan 4
I think FF would have started the FA Cup game this coming weekend anyway, so it just means that he gets an extra match to prove his worth.
Hopefully we see the best of him, like he showed in the past with that run of clean sheets for us, the great European displays for Celtic and saving a penalty at Anfield.
My only concerns are that his lack of game time may go against him, that he has played just one (token) game for Saints in the last 2.5 seasons and that he no longer has his previously defensive Stalwarts in front of him !!
1

underweststand added 11:48 - Jan 4
McCarthy's form has improved out of sight during the last year, and if there was any other keeper (than Forster) they would also have spent a lot of time on the bench.

For the salary he is (supposedly) getting, Fraser ought to be worth some game time and it's an ideal chance (v Liverpool) for him to show his worth against good opposition.
We all recall the time he was in top form, and kept 6 clean sheets (?) in a row, and so if he puts on a good show he will underline his value for the future - either with Saints - or elsewhere.
1


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