Sheffield United vs Liverpool
Bramall Lane
Wednesday 6 December 2023
19.30
Officials:
Referee: Simon Hooper. Assistants: Simon Long, Captain Mainwaring. Fourth official: Tony Harrington. VAR: Michael Oliver. Assistant VAR: Richard West.
Into December then and we have some tough games coming up. This should on paper be one of the easier ones but then so should have Luton and Fulham. Fulham in particular was a wide open game and the whole team looked a bit leggy to me. Hopefully that was just a one off and we can get back to a more commanding performance on Wednesday.
Sheffield United are 18th which is probably about right looking at their squad, mainly because I don’t know most of them. They do have Tom Davies so I suppose it makes sense they’re in the relegation zone. They also have a few former Reds.
Jack Robinson is 30 now and got his first of eleven games for us all those years ago under Rafa. Like probably every single youth player we’ve had, I had high hopes for him but he’s had spells at a few Championship clubs before ending up at Sheffield United where he’s not exactly been a regular but has still played nearly 100 games for them. He’s not played much this season though, having played only three league games so it’s unlikely hell start on Wednesday.
Yasser Larouci left a couple of summers ago but hasn’t really cemented himself at Troyes before going on loan to Sheffield United but it looks like he’s not really cemented himself there either. I thought he had a bit about him when he played in pre-season/youth games but it hasn’t happened for him.
Most frustrating of all is Rhian Brewster who had a lot of buzz and excitement surrounding him when he was top scorer as England won the Under 21 World Cup. I was really hoping he was going to stay here and become part of the first team and around the time we were winning the Champions League but instead we sold him for around £22m. It was a good fee at the time even though I know there was frustration that we were selling him. Unfortunately it hasn’t worked out so far, mainly because he’s had a lot of injury problems and has lost a lot of football in recent years. I’ve had brief look at what their fans think and it seems some like him while others don’t think he contributes enough even when he does play. Not great but I hope it still works out for him either at Sheffield United or elsewhere. He’s still young enough.
So it’s unlikely any of those three will play but it's a game we need to be winning and it’ll be an awful result if we don’t, regardless of whoever does. Overall, their form in recent weeks has seen them lose their last two games, both against potential relegation rivals Bournemouth and Burnley, the latter spanking them 5-0 on Saturday. Before that they got four points out of six, with a creditable draw at Brighton and a last minute winner at Wolves, albeit via penalty that shouldn’t have been given. Prior to that they’d lost six in row. Oli McBurnie got sent off in their last game so will be suspended. And the BBC are reporting today that Paul Heckingbottom is due to be sacked. Whether that makes a huge difference or not I’m not sure. They won’t have a new manager in charge so are probably going to play in a similar manner to how they have been so tactically it’s unlikely to be anything different to what we would have been expecting. It may put a bit of a spring in the step of the fans and players so that I suspect we’ll have to be wary of that more than anything else.
We’re thankfully top of our Europa League group so don’t have to worry too much about that but do have Crystal Palace at 12.30pm on Saturday (again) so I expect we’ll make a few changes from the Fulham game, although injuries are starting to pile up now. I make that Alisson, Robertson and Jota all out for this one, now joined by Matip after Sunday. Thiago and Bajcetic are still out too. It probably means that we may not see many changes from Sunday and with games every 3/4 days, it's not ideal going into a busy period. But from memory Klopp usually does ok in these early December midweek games so here’s hoping for that to continue.
Prediction: 3-0 to the tricky reds in that garish green and white kit.
