Liverpool enjoyed an unbeaten first half of the season and sat 7 points clear at the top of the Premier League, before suffering a defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium, that cut Liverpool's lead down to 4 points. After the shock exit to Wolves in the FA Cup a few days later due to injuries, or the need to rest players, Liverpool will hope to return to winning ways and maintain their lead at the top of the table during this difficult spell, until they can get some of their injured players back on the field of play.
Brighton may feel that this is a good time to take on a weakened Liverpool side and perhaps claim all 3 points. Since Brighton's 2-1 defeat to Chelsea, on December 16th, Chris Hughton's side haven't lost in their last 4 games, defeating Bournemouth and Everton and drawing against Arsenal and West Ham.
Chris Hughton has attempted some prematch mind games “They will be big favourites, [Liverpool] as everybody would imagine, and Brighton will do as "well as we can on the day...anything we do get will be a bonus.” He has also mooted a defensive strategy for Brighton "to make sure we give them a game” and the need to keep hold of the ball, the more Liverpool have the ball the more they will "break you down with the quality they have."
Liverpool will play with only one recognized center-back, Van Dijk having taken part in full-training since Wednesday, but after Dejan Lovren left the field with a hamstring strain against Wolves, he could be set to miss four to six weeks, the Liverpool Echo reported that, “no timescale has been put on Lovren’s recovery” but he “won’t be ready” for this weekend. Matip, who suffered a broken collar-bone against Napoli, is expected to resume full-training next week and has been penciled-in for a possible return against Crystal Palace on the 19th. Gomez (broken foot) is recovering well and may be ready for the away fixture at West Ham on February 4th, although the home game against Bournemouth on February 9 may be more realistic. Jordan Henderson has also recovered from a knock.
If Liverpool can get these players off the treatment table on schedule, then they will arrive just in time for a less congested run of fixtures and the injury crises will pass, but, in the meantime, there are some strange comparisons between this fixture at the AmEx Stadium and last season's fixture, on 2nd December 2017, when Liverpool were also forced to field a team with only one fit center-back, the formation being adjusted to a 3-5-1-1, with Wijnaldum as one of the CBs that day. Klopp said before that match, "We had big problems line-up wise, but for this game today the formation fitted really well."
Liverpool weren't exactly convincing at the back that day and Brighton had some good chances to score before Liverpool ran away with the match, producing a sublime attacking display in a 1-5 win, although Coutinho played a big part in that result, scoring a goal and laying on 2 assists.
On Saturday, we will see Wijnaldum and Fabinho playing either side of Van Dijk and hopefully Liverpool can repeat their attacking performance. Here are 2 possible starting formations for Liverpool on Saturday;
Depending on how well Liverpool's makeshift defense copes against Brighton, I favour Liverpool to take-away all 3 points on Saturday, but I don't think it will be the runaway victory of last year and I wouldn't put money on it at the available odds;
Liverpool face a much improved Brighton side this time around and we will recall the narrow 1-0 victory against at Anfield, on 25th August, against a defensively well drilled Brighton and I expect Hughton to set-up his side in much the same way, but he will want Brighton to test the Liverpool defense a bit more this time round to see what they're made of.
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