Mbeumo could cause some trouble against Liverpool. — Reuters
THE start of 2025 has not been that great for Premier League leaders Liverpool.
Back-to-back draws against Manchester United earlier this month and Nottingham Forest midweek have seen the Reds’ lead at the top of the table cut to four points from nine at the end of last month.
They do still have a game in hand, though.
The Merseyside club next travel to the capital to face Brentford, another difficult team to play against.
Arne Slot will need to improve his side’s defence, which has been rather leaky of late, to get his first league win of the new year.
The Liverpool boss will need to be wary of the threat posed by Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa.
Wissa recently made club history as their all-time Premier League top scorer with 37 goals, overtaking Ivan Toney by a goal while Mbeumo is also not far behind with 35.
Diogo Jota, who scored the equalising goal in the 1-1 draw against Forest, is in line to make his first start since returning from injury last month.
He could replace Cody Gakpo as the centre forward and line up alongside Mohamed Salah and Luis Diaz, while the rest of the starting 11 should remain unchanged.
Brentford are a good side but they too are quite vulnerable defensively.
Their recent form at home is also quite bad, with their last victory at the Gtech Community Stadium being against Newcastle United in early December.
Since then, they also lost to Forest and Arsenal before denying Manchester City all three points in the 2-2 draw midweek.
There should not be much change to the starting line-up than the one that faced off with champions Manchester City.
Mark Flekken should be between the goal posts, with Mads Roerslev, Nathan Collins, Keane Lewis-Potter and former Reds Sepp van den Berg in front of the goalkeeper.
In midfield, it should consist of Mikkel Damsgaard, Vitaly Janelt and Christian Norgaard while Wissa, Mbeumo and Kevin Schade would be the three forwards up front.
Compared to previous seasons when the team were severely hampered by numerous injuries, especially at this juncture, it has been quite smooth-sailing (touchwood) so far this year for Liverpool.
Slot needs to ensure his team are laser-focused to pick up where they left off at the end of December when they demolished West Ham 5-0.
They need to start winning again, starting with Brentford, to put a wider gap between them and the chasing pack if they want to reclaim the league title. — By IVAN LOH
