Liverpool welcome Leicester City to Anfield in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night – the first of two meetings between the two sides in the space of a week.
Brendan Rodgers returns to face his former club having seen Leicester undergo an enforced 10-day break due to a COVID-19 outbreak, whereas Liverpool are in the midst of a run of four games in 10 days.
Having seen their Premier League title challenge suffer a setback on Sunday, following a hardfought 2-2 draw at Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool must now quickly refocus on another potential route to silverware when they entertain Leicester in the Cup.
However, Liverpool have not reached the semi-finals of the League Cup since 2016-17 and have not lifted the trophy for a decade, yet they remain the joint-most successful club in the competition’s history.
The last time they got to the semi-finals, they lost 1-0 to Southampton, who went on to lost 3-2 to Manchester United.
And for Leicester, this surely is a daunting task as they have not won at Anfield on any of their last 10 visits in all competitions, a run which includes eight defeats and stretches back to 2000.
Ending that run on Wednesday would also bode well considering that 2000 was the year Leicester last won the League Cup, although they have only reached the semi-finals once in 21 attempts since then.
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Thiago Alcantara joined Fabinho and Curtis Jones in testing positive for coronavirus, while Harvey Elliott remains sidelined by a serious ankle injury.
Skipper Jordan Henderson was ruled out of the Tottenham game due to a non-COVID related illness and is a doubt for the clash with Leicester too.
Tyler Morton and James Milner could both therefore start again, while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain will be pushing for a return to the starting XI too.
Andrew Robertson will serve his suspension following his red card against Spurs, opening the door for Kostas Tsimikas at left-back, while Virgil van Dijk remains in isolation after his own positive COVID test.
Nat Phillips and Adrian are also absent, while Divock Origi is still absent due to a knee injury.
Reports suggest that Jannik Vestergaard, Ayoze Perez, Ademola Lookman, Kelechi Iheanacho, Filip Benkovic, Hamza Choudhury and Vontae Daley-Campbell are among the players to have tested positive, meaning that all of them could miss out in midweek.
Injuries to both Caglar Soyuncu and Jonny Evans against Newcastle, in addition to the continued absence of Wesley Fofana, mean that Rodgers could be forced to field a makeshift centre-back pairing of Daniel Amartey and Wilfred Ndidi.
