Liverpool v Man City injury news as nine sidelined and three doubts

Liverpool are back in action on Sunday, and there’s no let-up as they look to put a disappointing start to the season in the rear-view mirror.

Jurgen Klopp’s men were defeated by leaders Arsenal last week, and they face second place and title favourites Manchester City on Sunday. The Reds have been under-par so far this term, but they did pick up some much-needed confidence during the week by defeating Rangers 7-1 in the Champions League.

City will be a much stiffer test, though, and already 13 points behind Sunday’s visitors, Liverpool can ill-afford to lose if they want to put together a title charge this season. Ahead of the game, Klopp has been very coy on the injury latest at Liverpool, simply saying: “We have to see, no final decisions yet.”

What we do know is that Joel Matip will miss out with a calf injury, while Trent Alexander-Arnold will also be absent. Arthur Melo is out long-term after surgery, while Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain are sidelined with hamstring problems. Curtis Jones is a doubt as he fights for a return, but Luis Diaz is out until the new year.

Ibrahima Konate and Calvin Ramsay will be down as doubts, but the former is much more likely to feature than the latter.

City have some injury concerns, but nowhere near to the level of Liverpool’s. Phil Foden and Bernardo Silva have had niggles, while Erling Haaland was not fit to play in the Champions League during the week. “Phil also had some disturbing problems, Bernardo told us yesterday he was so tired. I didn’t want to take a risk,” Pep Guardiola said in an update.

“We have a lot of games like a lot of teams and the players recover better. We cannot forget that Erling last season could not play this amount of games in a row. They feel good. They are ready for Sunday.”

Meanwhile City will be without John Stones, Kyle Walker and Kalvin Phillips, who are all dealing with longer term issues. “All of them will be out [for Sunday],” added Guardiola. “John will be back, I don’t know when, but maybe one week or 10 days. Kalvin is getting better and improving a lot. Kyle still is out.”