Arne Slot said he was optimistic about Alisson\u2019s availability for Sunday\u2019s Premier League meeting with Tottenham but offered no guarantees.<\/p>\n
Tottenham enter the fixture in strong scoring form, having found the net in 13 of their last 14 matches. Only against Manchester United, when they were reduced to 10 men for more than an hour, did Spurs fail to score.<\/p>\n
Liverpool arrive without a watertight defence. The defending champions possess the Premier League\u2019s ninth-best defensive record and the club can ill-afford an extended absence of their established goalkeeper. Alisson missed Tuesday\u2019s Champions League clash against Galatasaray with a muscular issue that Slot described as minor, though the manager stressed caution after the goalkeeper\u2019s earlier hamstring layoff.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe felt something when he passed the ball in one of his muscles, but after we checked it it was so minor we think it doesn\u2019t have to take very long,\u201d Slot told assembled media on Friday. \u201cBut as always games follow up so fast that he had to miss the one against Galatasaray and hopefully he is available and ready for Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf not,\u201d Slot added, \u201cI am expecting him, if things go as planned, definitely against Galatasaray.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Champions League last-16 second leg is due on Wednesday at Anfield. Liverpool trail 1\u20130 on aggregate but had plenty of chances in Istanbul to suggest they can overturn the deficit. Securing the defence while pressing for goals will be crucial, and Alisson\u2019s presence would be a clear boost.<\/p>\n
His deputy did not entirely convince during the period without the first-choice keeper. Giorgi Mamardashvili arrived at Anfield in his first season with suggestions he might challenge for the number one shirt. That threat did not materialise, and the Georgia international looked shaky throughout his run in the side during Alisson\u2019s earlier October and November absence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says he is hopeful Alisson will return for Tottenham after a minor muscle issue. previously out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172,187],"tags":[355,299,1047],"class_list":["post-8395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-alisson-becker","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}