Salah, Van Dijk Unavailable Against Southampton

Liverpool play their 37th game of the league season against Southampton on Tuesday. Like most of the previous 36 matches, this is a must-win if Liverpool can retain any hope of grabbing the quadruple. After their draw against Spurs, the odds of achieving the Premier League title have dwindled, though Manchester City dropping their own two points on Sunday has rekindled some hope.

If Liverpool can pull off the impossible, they’ll need to rake in all three points against both Southampton and Wolves on Sunday and hope that Manchester City fail to win their own final match. However, they’ll have to take on Southampton without both Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk. Both players went off as a precaution during the FA Cup win at Wembley last Saturday.

It was assumed, and now Jürgen Klopp has confirmed, that three days is not enough rest for both players.

“They are both OK,” Klopp confirmed. “So, the target would be for both that they can be involved again on the weekend. Properly involved, bench or whatever and a few minutes or start, I don’t know, we will see that, because that would then be perfect for the game [Champions League final].

“But if not then we take each day afterwards. But we are very positive, or [have] no doubt about the final. I’m pretty realistic about the Wolves game, but tomorrow rather not.”

If two of Liverpool’s most important players had to miss one of the three games they have left to play, most would have chosen this one. It’s good news that they’ll both be ready by the time they head to Paris for the Champions League final. The fact that the squad is deep enough to compensate for their loss without a huge dip in quality goes a long way to explaining how we got to the third week of May and are still competing for two trophies.

Liverpool travel to Southampton on Tuesday evening to play their penultimate game of the league season at St. Mary’s Stadium.