EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

In the second of three consecutive games that Arsenal and Liverpool will play against each other, Liverpool may sacrifice the game because they have no hope of wining the EPL but do have hopes to win the Champions League. Liverpool is currently in 4th place in the EPL (62 points), Everton is 5 points below (57), Arsenal is 8 points above them (70 points), Chelsea in 2nd place with 71 points and Man Utd (76 points). While Arsenal still has a chance of winning the EPL and the Champions League, Liverpool cannot realistically expect to win or even approach 3rd place in the EPL. As a result, we can expect them to bench some of their first string players for the following English premier league game, especially since the two teams have to play 3 consecutive games in 6 days. This is reinforced by the first leg game of the Champions League (quarter finals) where Arsenal tied Liverpool (away, 1-1). Liverpool’s away goal could be crucial and gives them a distinct advatage.

Rafael Benitez could well be expected to switch out many of his stars such as Fernando Torres, Steven Gerrard, Sami Hyypia, Jamie Carragher, and Dirk Kuyt. “‘I will need to think carefully about my team for the league match. Torres and Gerrard will need to be strong for the second leg, and Kuyt ran himself to a standstill on Wednesday.

“Some players recover in two or three days, others need four. Maybe we will need to change some players. The age may be the key. Fernando can recover in two days, but Sami could take five. We will have to wait and see. I am expecting to make changes, I cannot expect them to play three times like that in seven days, certainly with the very high tempo of the games. It is impossible to play these same players three times in a week. Impossible.”

“It will be impossible to play with the same eleven in three games against Arsenal.

“I think, in this situation, rotation is maybe good. We flew back from London on Wednesday night after the match, and we will go back today. It’s a hard few days, mentally difficult. On Thursday we had a light training session, and then we will rest and discuss tactics and how we will play in the league match. Rafa will have already seen the first game back a couple of times to tell us what we did good and bad. He will now tell us how we can do better.”

Liverpool’s Masherano will be out for the EPL game because of a 2 match ban he received at Old Trafford for refusing to leave the pitch after getting a red card.

What will be interesting is how Ferguson’s team will deal with playing three high paced games against Liverpool. Arsenal’s players will be under a lot of pressure to win the next 2 games against Liverpool so that their chances of winning both the EPL and Champions League will remain alive.