February may be the shortest month of the year, but it’s shaping up to be a particularly busy one for Liverpool as they continue to fight on four fronts.
After today’s difficult Premier League trip to Bournemouth – for which some key players could return – the Reds will turn their attention to the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Tottenham on Thursday night, when only a win will keep them in the competititon after the 1-0 defeat in north London in early January.
If Arne Slot’s side are to get the result they need and reach the final of that competition for the third time in four years, it’ll have a knock-on effect in terms of one top-flight fixture.
Liverpool could have yet another match to play in February
The Carabao Cup final will be played on 16 March, the day after Liverpool are currently scheduled to face Aston Villa away in the Premier League.
Should the Reds book their place at Wembley in a few days’ time, the top-flight trip to the Midlands will be brought forward to Wednesday 19 February with a 7:30pm kick-off, as confirmed on liverpoolfc.com on Friday.
Liverpool could lose benefit that Champions League progress was meant to bring
By finishing top of the new-look league phase in the Champions League, Liverpool were meant to have had two free February midweeks as a reward for bypassing the knockout play-off round. Instead, they now face the prospect of playing in both of those slots.
The need to reschedule the Goodison Park derby from early December has already taken up one Wednesday night this month (12th), and there’ll be another date to add to the diary for the following week should the Reds make it to the Carabao Cup final.
It means that we won’t actually get the benefit of our first-place Champions League finish, and we’ll also lose the potentially significant advantage that we had over Manchester City for our visit to the Etihad Stadium on 23 February, four days after Pep Guardiola’s side take on Real Madrid in Europe.
Incredibly, Liverpool face the prospect of six Premier League games in 26 days this month, and four of our next five in the top flight (including Bournemouth today) would be away fixtures if the Villa match is brought forward.
It’d also mean that Arne Slot’s side have a midweek clash every single week until mid-March and the subsequent international break, the flip side of keeping the quadruple dream alive.
However, to get this far in the season with a plausible chance of winning four competitions is always something to appreciate, and another positive to take from the potential fixture change is that it’d get another tough away match out of the way by the end of this month.
Liverpool have already shown that they can hurdle almost any obstacle placed in their path, and we’ve every faithi in the Reds to embrace every challenge that they face!
