Liverpool Name Squad for Champions League Knockout Rounds
With the January transfer window in the rearview mirror and the Champions League knockout rounds looming, it’s time for clubs still in Europe to select their squads for the second half of their campaigns.
And thanks to a rule change spurred by Barcelona’s inability to register £150M signing Philippe Coutinho, new January signings are eligible to be included as long as they can fit within the regulations. Which means for the Reds, Takumi Minamino is in.
To make room for him, young defender Sepp van den Berg has been dropped from the squad, hardly a surprise given the youth player didn’t play any role in the autumn and is generally seen as still needing time to adapt.
The rest remains unchanged, which means there’s still not place for Nathaniel Clyne and if the Reds need fullback cover it will fall to either James Milner or Jordan Henderson—or eligible youth players like Neco Williams.
In total, Liverpool named a 22-man A-list squad, three short of the 25-man maximum that can only be reached if a club has eight homegrown players with at least four of those players being club trained.
In future years, the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Curtis Jones, Neco Williams, and Harvey Elliott—who had to be included on the A-list squad as despite his age he hasn’t yet spent two years at the club—would all qualify as homegrown.
As many players as the club wants who are or were 21 years of age or younger at any point during the 2019-20 campaign and who have spent at least two years at the club can be named to the B-list squad. Those players are marked with an asterisk.
Goalkeepers: Alisson Becker, Adrián, Andy Lonergan, Caoimhin Kelleher*
Defenders: Virgil van Dijk, Dejan Lovren, Joe Gomez, Andy Robertson, Joël Matip, Adam Lewis*, Trent Alexander-Arnold*, Neco Williams*, Yasser Larouci*
Midfielders: Fabinho, Georginio Wijnaldum, James Milner, Naby Keïta, Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, Xherdan Shaqiri, Curtis Jones*
Forwards: Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mané, Mohamed Salah , Takumi Minamino, Divock Origi, Harvey Elliott
Source.google news.com
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