As expected, Arne Slot has made wholesale changes to the Liverpool starting XI for today’s Premier League clash against Brighton.
Dominik Szoboszlai and Cody Gakpo are the only two Reds players retained from the midweek Carabao Cup meeting between the two teams at the Amex Stadium, and while several of those returning to the team were fully expected to return, others were much harder to call before the line-up was named at 1:45pm.
Among those coming back into the side is Kostas Tsimikas, who gets the nod at left-back ahead of Andy Robertson after the latter struggled in the 2-2 draw against Arsenal six days ago.
When the team news was announced 75 minutes before kick-off, Theo Squires honed in on that particular decision from Slot in his immediate reaction to the LFC line-up.
The Liverpool Echo journalist wrote on the publication’s live matchday blog (13:47): ‘A big chance for Tsimikas to stake his claim after a challenging week for Robertson.’
It’s just a second Premier League start of the season for Tsimikas this afternoon (the other came against Crystal Palace four weeks ago), although he has already been given the nod over Robertson in two of our three Champions League games so far (Transfermarkt).
(Photo by Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
The Scot was admittedly well below his best at the Emirates Stadium last weekend, and although some of the social media venom directed against him in recent days is completely over the top, it seems sensible for Slot to take him out of the firing line after two starts already this week.
His positional rival from Greece has shipped quite a bit of online criticism himself in his time at Liverpool, but as Squires said, he might view today’s match as a big opportunity to hold down the left-back berth on a more regular basis.
With two big games to come against Bayer Leverkusen and Aston Villa over the next week, and another hectic run of seven fixtures in 21 days after the international break, both men should get plenty of opportunities so long as they remain fit.
As ever, we fully trust in Slot to make the best decision for the team in each particular game, and hopefully Tsimikas can justify the coach’s faith today.
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