Andoni Iraola has confirmed his Liverpool team to take on Tottenham in the Carabao Cup, with decisions made on Trey Nyoni and Cody Gakpo at Anfield in a changed side
Trey Nyoni and Rio Ngumoha during a Liverpool training session.
Trey Nyoni and Rio Ngumoha during a Liverpool training session.(Image: Nikki Dyer/Liverpool FC via Getty Images)
Liverpool has made changes to its starting XI to take on Tottenham, with Andoni Iraola having hinted at such a move after a period of fixtures in the last few weeks.
Giorgi Mamardashvili starts in goal, as Iraola had already confirmed would be the case, with Jeremie Frimpong, Joe Gomez, Ronald Araujo and Milos Kerkez lining up along the back four. Alexis Mac Allister, James McConnell and Trey Nyoni are in midfield.
Up top, Alexander Isak and Florian Wirtz get a rest, with the latter not even on the bench. Lewis Koumas, Cody Gakpo and Rio Ngumoha complete the line-up. The winner will discover their next opponent tomorrow with the fourth round to come in the week commencing October 26.
"I said after Saturday's draw against Fulham that we need to adapt to the challenge of playing fixtures close together and tonight's game gives us a chance to start taking steps on that journey," Iraola writes in his program notes.
"There is no point making excuses or complaining about the time that we have to recover. This kind of situation is going to happen many times this season, so we have to face it and make the best of it.
"This doesn't necessarily mean I expect us to be at our very best in every single game that we play, but we should certainly be aiming for higher performance levels than we were able to reach at the weekend and we should also be finding ways to win.
Andoni Iraola, Manager of Liverpool smiles
Andoni Iraola will look to bounce back from the draw against Fulham in Tuesday's Carabao Cup tie against Tottenham(Image: Photo by Visionhaus/Getty Images)
"I say this because we want to be playing in the Champions League for as long as we can this season and we also want to be in the cup competitions for as long as we can.
"In these circumstances, adapting to a quick turnaround in games is clearly not only something we want to be good at — it is an absolute necessity.
"Football will not wait for us either so the sooner we can meet this challenge the better. Ideally, that would be tonight because that would definitely improve our chances of making it through to the next round of the Carabao Cup.
"This is a competition, like all of the others, that we want to do well in.
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"This will be the same for all of the participating clubs, of course, but our history in the Carabao Cup in all of its many guises gives us an extra incentive because we know what it means to Liverpool and to our supporters.
"Every single Liverpool supporter who attends tonight's game will be doing so because they want to see us perform and to give us as much help as possible to do that.
"This is not a pressure, it is a privilege, one that we should and will embrace, not just tonight but in every game that we play."
Liverpool starting XI: Mamardashvili; Frimpong, Gomez, Araujo, Kerkez; Nyoni, McConnell; Koumas, Mac Allister, Ngumoha; Gakpo. Subs: Alisson, Endo, Jacquet, Szoboszlai, Isak, Munoz, Barcola, Gravenberch, Chambers.