Liverpool face Derby away at the Ipro stadium in the English League Cup and after an impressive 2-1 victory at Chelsea friday night, just how much will Jürgen Klopp change the team?

Loris Karius will get his debut for Liverpool it’s been reported. Karius now fully recovered from his broken hand suffered in our pre-season match with Chelsea he’s now trained for a full fortnight . Klopp: “Yes, if nothing happens, Loris will play. In the moment when we signed him you can imagine we thought he is not so bad.” and went on to say about the battle for no 1 goalie “What we want is two really strong goalkeepers and that is what I think we have got.”

After his press conference it was clear that Sakho is still building fitness and not in contention for this game after being quoted “it’s not when the player feels ready but more when I feel they’re ready.” Feel it could still be some time before we see the return of Sakho. There’s good news on the fitness of Emre Can after being sidelined for 4 weeks with a ankle injury is now available and reports say he’ll be starting, which to be fair would be good minutes to ease himself back into action. Same for Firmino’s slight groin problem that prevented him being risked at Chelsea, has now completely cleared up. Grujic for me is must starter for this game, what better way to make a case for the 1st team after an impressive pre-season it’s left many of us reds, including me craving more. Then there’s the centre back pairing to decide, will he stick with Lovren/ Matip as there partnership is developing with the plus that if Karius is the future no 1 goalkeeper, he would only benefit getting used to playing with them. Although Klavan will be another option with experience if he’s to make a few changes, not forgetting that Lucas played well at centre back against Leicester apart from the obvious. Have a feeling Can will start as a defensive midfielder to help cover Grujic and free him up as more of attacking midfield option.Wouldn’t blame Klopp if he rested Lallana, he ran 12.88km against Chelsea! That’s 8 miles folks, so don’t be too let down to see him get a well earned rest.

The other clues to who might be in tuesday nights starting eleven was who played in the under 23’s 6-2 thrashing of Tottenham: Grabara, Arnold, Maguire, Ilori, Whelan, Stewart, Wilson, Virtue, T Gomes, Brannagan, Woodburn.

No chance of them starting, biggest suprise maybe Stewart who I thought might of started. It’s more a case of who didn’t feature such as: Ings, Ejaria, Randall. Even though Danny Ings didn’t start this game, I still wonder if he’ll jump ahead of Divock Origi who’s only had substitute performances so far and is a hand full for any defence. The way Klopp was referring to this cup competition: “We are going into the cup competition with the aim to win it.” and “We only have strong line ups. We will find a strong line up tomorrow, we won’t rest any 100% fit players.” You really have to believe this isn’t going to be the sort of cup game that is a whole team changed, Klopp spoke about this is normal for a game every 3-4 days and the players can cope with this. So hard to second guess our witty boss but expect a very strong line up as Klopp is taking every chance of silverware extremely serious.

Heres my prediction on how Liverpool’s starting XI might look tuesday night:

Feel free to critic my choices as I’m sure they’ll be plenty who will disagree but I find that different outlooks and lineups is what pre-match excitement is all about. I’m going to stick my neck out here with a score prediction: 4-0 Liverpool expecting a strong line up and a performance to match.

come on Liverpool let’s keep this momentum going regardless of the competition!

written by Ben Webb

@benwebblfc