Liverpool are currently competing for silverware across all four fronts but face a daunting obstacle in the first step of their FA Cup campaign, travelling to the Emirates Stadium to take on Arsenal.

Having won their Europa League group and advanced to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup – where Fulham await for a double-legged tie – Liverpool are flying and top the Premier League table after 20 matches to boot.

Mohamed Salah and Wataru Endo are both unavailable after heading off to the African Cup of Nations and Asia Cup respectively, while Dominik Szoboszlai is to miss a few weeks with a hamstring strain.

Liverpool will take a winter break next week and thus could field a strong line-up in London tomorrow, with Klopp making four changes from the team that defeated Newcastle United on New Year's Day.

1 GK – Alisson

Klopp admitted that the trip to Arsenal is perhaps not the best game in the calender to rotate, and while Caoimhin Kelleher has been a decent backup, Alisson should start between the sticks, with his expertise needed against Bukayo Saka and co.

#

Player

Club

Save %

1

Alisson

Liverpool

77.4%

2

Alphonse Areola

West Ham United

76.9%

3

Andre Onana

Manchester United

73.7%

4

Guglielmo Vicario

Tottenham Hotspur

73.6%

5

Nick Pope

Newcastle United

73.6%

*Sourced via FBref

2 RB – Trent Alexander-Arnold

Long has Trent Alexander-Arnold been regarded as one of Europe's most creative and influential footballers, but this season, the 25-year-old is starting to demonstrate his worth as one of the game's very best.

With two goals and eight assists to his name, the Reds vice-captain will be confident of a standout performance, making amends for that miss.

3 CB – Ibrahima Konate

With Joel Matip out for the campaign after rupturing his ACL in December, it was crucial that Ibrahima Konate stepped up, and boy has he succeeded.

The 6 foot 4 Frenchman is a monstrous presence in the rearguard and works so well alongside his captain.

4 CB – Virgil van Dijk

Virgil van Dijk will start against Arsenal, with the imperious Dutchman utterly magnificent this season as he puts last year's malaise behind him.

In the Premier League, as per Sofascore, the 32-year-old has completed 91% of his passes, averaged 5.0 ball recoveries and 4.5 clearances per game and won a whopping 78% of his duels.

5 LB – Joe Gomez

Owen Beck was recalled from his loan with Dundee but will not be eligible to play in London due to a suspension, so the versatile Joe Gomez will receive the nod and look to continue his impressive season at left-back.

The 26-year-old had been in dismal form for large portions of last season but deserves so much credit for weathering the storm and returning to play a key part in a year that tantalises silver-laden success.

6 DM – Alexis Mac Allister

Alexis Mac Allister missed the last four matches of December with a knee injury but made a cameo as Liverpool beat Newcastle, earning applause for his delightful threaded pass to set up Liverpool's late penalty.

With Endo absent, the Argentinian orchestrator will return to the starting line-up and will be expected to use his technical prowess to assert control in the midfield battle.

7 CM – Curtis Jones

Curtis Jones was a key component in Liverpool's late-season purple patch before the summer, salvaging Europa League football and proving his worth as a multi-functional star in his Merseyside outfit.

Having scored three goals across the past few weeks, the multi-functional star has been so important in the centre of the park and is increasingly confident in his recycling of possession and metronomic swagger, with analyst Raj Chohan lauding his "phenomenal" ball retention skills.

8 CM – Ryan Gravenberch

Signing from Bayern Munich for £34m on transfer deadline day, Ryan Gravenberch put a tough spell of his career behind him and looked ahead to life on English soil with optimism, and while he made a fast start with Liverpool, he has regressed somewhat of late.

The 21-year-old has scored two goals and supplied two assists but has only started seven times in the league; that said, his latent quality is clear to see.

As per FBref, the £150k-per-week midfielder ranks among the top 6% of positional peers across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for shot-creating actions, the top 10% for progressive passes and successful take-ons, the top 13% for progressive carries and the top 11% for blocks per 90.

9 RW – Harvey Elliott

With Salah now out of club action for around a month, give or take, Harvey Elliott, aged 20, might find a starting berth provided on the right wing, with the "special" talent, as he has been called by pundit Jamie Carragher, no doubt deserving of a more prominent role.

10 LW – Luis Diaz

Luis Diaz has been under fire recently, having only scored three goals from 19 appearances in the Premier League, struggling to implement his electric game as he might desire.

Nonetheless, he is a fine player and showed some notable improvements in a talismanic first-half display against the Magpies, with The Athletic's James Pearce noting the "influential" effort.

Diogo Jota is fit and firing after injury but might be best utilised from the bench, where he can be ever so deadly.

On Tuesday night, Leeds United make the trip to fellow Championship side Plymouth for an FA Cup fourth-round replay. The first meeting between the sides at Elland Road finished 1-1, with Adam Randell equalising for the visitors in the final 20 minutes after Jaidon Anthony had given Daniel Farke's side the lead.

The incentive for the winner is a fifth-round match-up with either Chelsea or Aston Villa, who themselves will meet in a replay on Wednesday night. But heading into the game, Farke is dealing with a few injury problems.

Winger Dan James is out until at least the weekend, when Leeds take on Rotherham, after injuring his hip in the first half of the recent win over Norwich, while centre-back Pascal Struijk, who's been unavailable since Boxing Day with an ongoing adductor issue, is expected to be missing until the end of February. Stuart Dallas remains a long-term absentee after breaking his leg in 2022.

Shackleton now on the sidelines for Leeds

Farke is now set to be without a fourth player for the game at Home Park, with BBC Sport's Adam Pope reporting that Jamie Shackleton is a "major doubt" as a result of illness.

In a subsequent tweet, he adds that Farke has no fresh injury concerns and intends to take the game "seriously" while making changes amid the Whites' push for promotion to the Premier League.

Shackleton had shone in first game

Farke has described Shackleton as "an unbelievably important" part of his squad, and he showed exactly why when he stepped into the team for the first game against Plymouth and delivered an excellent performance.

Tackles

3

=1st

Ground duel success rate

100%

1st

Total duel success rate

75%

2nd

Passing accuracy (min. 40 attempted)

89%

4th

Possession lost (starters)

5

1st

As you can see in the table above, he was rock-solid defensively and looked after the ball well too, but Farke may now have to ask 17-year-old Archie Gray, who's already clocked more than 2,500 minutes this season, to start yet another match.

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Since the end of September, Shackleton has started more games in the cup (two) than he has in the league (one), so he'll be particularly frustrated to miss the opportunity. It's recently emerged that Leeds intend to offer him a new contract ahead of the expiry of his current deal in the summer, and this would have been an opportunity to improve his stock before those negotiations take place. If Leeds go out, it's unclear where his next opportunity will come.

There may have been sections of the Tottenham Hotspur support who were scratching their head at the news of the club's interest in former Chelsea flop, Timo Werner, with the German speedster having hardly been the most exciting capture on the surface.

The 27-year-old – who has signed on an initial loan deal from RB Leipzig – had previously faltered in the Premier League during his time at Stamford Bridge, scoring just ten top-flight goals across two full seasons, prior to being sent back to the Bundesliga.

That return to his homeland had also failed to pan out as the one-time Stuttgart man netted just twice in the first half of 2023/24 – and yet, the early evidence would suggest that Ange Postecoglou has pulled off something of a masterstroke, such has been Werner's fine start to life in Lilywhite.

Rather than being tasked with trying to emulate the likes of Harry Kane through the middle, the versatile asset has instead found a home for himself on the left flank in his embryonic Tottenham career, registering two assists across his first three league outings.

That early impact has led to praise from pundit Jamie O'Hara, with the former Spurs midfielder stating that Werner has been a "good signing" for the club and that Postecoglou can "get the best out of him", despite his prior woes in west London.

With Heung-min Son soon set to return from the Asian Cup later this month, the former Celtic boss now has real competition on the flanks in the form of the South Korean star, Dejan Kulusevski, Brennan Johnson and Werner – a pool of talent that could help fire them toward a Champions League berth.

That strength in depth, however, should prove bad news for one promising talent at N17, with Bryan Gil seemingly needing to find a new home over the summer, despite opting to stay put in the winter window.

January interest in Bryan Gil

It is telling of Gil's woes that in the previous two January windows he has been shipped out on loan back to his native Spain, with that epitomising just what a dismal deal it has been for all concerned since his arrival from Sevilla back in 2021.

That £25m capture – which also saw Erik Lamela head in the other direction – looks to be a real costly mistake as far as Spurs are concerned, with the playmaker having quickly been sent back to La Liga to join Valencia in 2022, prior to making a return to Andalusia a year later.

As pundit Noel Whelan stated, sending the youngster back to a league that he has already impressed in appeared "utterly pointless", hence the intrigue regarding a potential move within the Premier League last month.

The suggestion late in the window was that Brighton and Hove Albion were keen to sign the 22-year-old on loan until the end of the season, with the two clubs having even held talks regarding that potential temporary switch.

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As it proved, however, the four-cap international reportedly shunned that interest amid his desire to stay in north London, although it remains to be seen how much game time he will go on to get this season, particularly amid the signing of Werner.

Bryan Gil's season by numbers

Since turning down the Seagulls' advances, Gil has been described as a "fantastic young player" by his manager, with Postecoglou hinting that the 5 foot 9 dynamo has largely not been helped due to injuries this season.

That being said, when the £40k-per-week talent has featured of late he hasn't exactly done much to impress, with Sky Sport pundit Jamie Carragher brutally stating that the winger "looked like a boy playing in a man’s game", after he was hooked at half time in the 2-2 draw with Manchester City.

That outing at the Etihad was one of just two league starts that the left-footer has earned so far this season, having also struggled to make an impact off the bench with no goals or assists in 11 games in all competitions.

As Postecoglou noted, injuries have been a factor in derailing his progress, although there is a nagging feeling that Gil simply struggles to impact games, having created zero 'big chances' and averaged just 0.3 key passes per game in the league in 2023/24.

Part of a group of players whom writer Mitch Fretton described as "unwanted" at the club last summer, the peripheral figure also averages just 0.4 tackles and interceptions per game, with the defensive part of his game also lacking.

How Bryan Gil compares to Timo Werner

It is quite remarkable that in just four appearances for Spurs to date, Werner has already matched Gil's record of two assists – despite the fact that the Spaniard has now played 42 games for the club.

While there have been stints out on loan, in over three years at N17, Gil has also failed to score so far in all competitions, with the north Londoners having hardly seen any return on their rather sizeable £25m investment.

It is not as if the Brighton target has particularly ripped it up during his time in Spain either, his best returns seeing him score four goals and contribute four assists in 29 games for Eibar, while providing just nine goal contributions in 45 games for Sevilla.

Werner, meanwhile, chalked up 160 goals and assists in just 213 games across two spells at Leipzig, while also actually boasting a solid record for the Blues with 44 goal involvements in just 89 games.

Werner

Gil

0.27

0.12

0.21

0.18

2.99

2.62

2.46

2.80

3.95

3.15

1.23

1.98

6.04

3.38

9.73

9.39

The Champions League winner's superior threat can also be seen by the fact that he ranks in the top 11% among his European peers for touches in attacking penalty area per 90, while Gil, by contrast, ranks in just the bottom 34% in that regard.

With Werner already making an immediate impact under Postecoglou, it is hard to see young Gil being able to replicate such a resurgence over the coming months, with the eventual outcome likely to be a much-needed exit this summer.