Liverpool 'confirm' one starter against Sparta Prague as Jurgen Klopp drops starting line-up hint

Jurgen Klopp has insisted he will name a Liverpool team that is capable of carrying on building rhythm against Sparta Prague.

The Reds head into the Europa League last-16 second-leg tie at Anfield tonight with a 5-1 aggregate lead after last week's routing in the Czech capital. Liverpool are in the middle of a busy fixture schedule and face Manchester United in the FA Cup quarter-finals on Sunday in their bid to win four trophies this season.

The lengthy injury list means that the Reds' squad has been stretched. And given their sizeable advantage, some may feel Klopp could make wholesale changes and hand chances to youngsters including the likes of Bobby Clark, James McConnell and Lewis Koumas.

However, Klopp has insisted that Liverpool will start a team with the 'best legs' that is capable of beating Sparta on the night. The Reds boss said: “I think it’s really important that whatever football game you play you should… sometimes you have to chase a game and if we lost the first game 1-0 you cannot ignore the first one, or drew, then still you just have to win the game first and foremost, and then you will see how much that means, the result you can get.

“And for us it just means that means that we want to play the best possible football game, that’s always the way we decided about the line-up. I couldn’t tell you in this moment what I will do even if I wanted to.

“I wouldn’t but I couldn’t [anyway] because after that I go to the training ground and in these times you wait until the last second and then everybody tells you, ‘He has a niggle here, he has a niggle there and he might need an extra day’ or these kind of things.

“We had that yesterday already with a few players who needed an extra day, so let’s see how that looks now today and then I make my decision about the line-up.

“But the idea for the line-up will be to have the best legs for that game because that’s what we need, because we have to ignore the [first-leg] result, I would say, but not the performance and performance-wise they had massive chances against us. They caused us massive problems in moments.

“Caoimh [Kelleher] had to make a few outstanding saves and that’s in my mind, not how we scored the goals and stuff like this because that was mainly individual quality. There was a few good football situations as well but it was individual quality a lot, so we need to keep rhythm for this part of the season now.

“It’s not about on and off, it’s about keep the rhythm and keep going and don’t think about the next game on Sunday, even when the opponent is Manchester United.”

One player who is set to start is Dominik Szoboszlai. The midfielder was on pre-match media duties ahead of the game, which is usually a telling indication he will feature from the outset. Szoboszlai has recently returned from a hamstring injury and has enjoyed an eye-catching maiden season since arriving from RB Leipzig for £60 million, recording six goals and four assists in 31 appearances. However, the Hungary captain believes he can get even better.

Szobszoali said: "Maybe it's not [just] because of my injury, also we can say because of my injury, but it happens also that you have really good games, you have less-good games, you have a bad game. We are also not perfect. I think none of us [in] all the games showed themselves 100 per cent what he can really do. But especially [on] my side, I'm every day working on it to get [in] my best shape. Probably if you think the best shape was the beginning of the season, it wasn't. I can be even better."