Salah a doubt for Cup final as Liverpool injuries pile up

Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders said he hoped Mohamed Salah would be fit for Sunday's Carabao Cup final against Chelsea but said his participation remained uncertain.

Salah and Darwin Núñez missed Wednesday's match against Luton Town after playing for Liverpool at Brentford last weekend.

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“Dominique [Szoboszlai]Darwin and [Salah], you really have to see. We still have two days left,” Lijnders said at a press conference on Friday. “Then we will check if they can be there. It would be great to be honest.”

Salah, out for a month with a hamstring injury suffered during the Africa Cup of Nations, scored on his return as a substitute at Brentford on Saturday before missing the game against Luton Town.

Ljinders confirmed the absences of Curtis Jones, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alisson and Diogo Jota for Sunday's final, but gave his support for the club's academy players to take their place.

“It's also good in life to accept what you have, so that's what we're trying to do. It's brought us success in the past and we're trying to maintain that,” Ljinders said.

“We have some injuries so we have young players, players who haven't played five times in a row but who can come forward and that's really cool. This season is a season where we have already created new teams, It’s a compliment to our team and our academy.”

Academy graduates Caoimhin Kelleher, Jarell Quansah and Conor Bradley, who all started in Liverpool's win over Luton Town on Wednesday, have played key roles for Liverpool this season. The win over Luton also saw academy players Bobby Clark, Jayden Danns and James McConnell come off the bench.

Goalkeeper Kelleher has become a capable deputy to Alisson and is set to feature in his second Carabao Cup final for the club on Sunday.

“I'm really happy for him. At Liverpool you need two good goalkeepers and we have them. It's special and it's a huge compliment to the goalkeeping department,” Ljinders said.

“He is a complete goalkeeper. He can make winning saves and he sees the game, knows when to play with direction and he is calm, this serenity creates calm for others. Especially the way we want to play. It's important to have a goalkeeper like that.”

Meanwhile, Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has refuted Jurgen Klopp's comments that Liverpool are not favorites for the final.

“Of course, if they are not the favorites, we are not the favorites, if he said that,” Pochettino told a press conference on Friday.

“For me, Liverpool are the favorite because after the last few years they have the experience of competing as a team and participating in different finals.

“For many of our players, it's not just new to this competition and for some of them, it's maybe their first final. That's why I [as] favorites. But it's smart to say 50-50. Liverpool are favorites and they know that's how it is.

Chelsea were beaten 4-1 by Liverpool in January, but Pochettino believes they came out of the experience better.

“After [the] Liverpool [game]“The result was completely unfair because I think if you look at the game again, a couple of penalties, the penalty after five minutes was given, I think maybe it completely changed the game,” Pochettino said.

But maybe it was good to feel the pain, a negative situation against us, to be stronger now, to find a way to compete better and to start to see that we have to live in a different way, team spirit.

Information from James Olley and Reuters contributed to this report