Mohamed Salah and Florian Wirtz will return to a much-changed Liverpool starting lineup when they welcome Aston Villa to Anfield on Saturday.

Liverpool will be desperate to return to winning ways when they host Aston Villa at Anfield on Saturday night. Arne Slot has received a positive update on the team news front ahead of his side’s latest fixture.

Ryan Gravenberch is fit and available to take on Aston Villa this weekend after recovering from an ankle injury. The Dutch midfielder will be in contention to lock horns with the West Midlands outfit on Saturday.

However, Alisson Becker (thigh), Giovanni Leoni (knee), Jeremie Frimpong (hamstring), Curtis Jones (muscle), and Alexander Isak (groin) remain in the treatment room. Meanwhile, during his pre-match press conference, Slot provided fitness updates on Gravenberch and the injured players.

The Liverpool manager said, “Ryan trained with us for the first time yesterday, will train with us today. Then we are going to make the call if he is able to start, yes or no. 99.9 per cent sure, [Jones and Isak] won’t be available.”

Discussing how he has had to adjust his team combination due to the raft of injuries, Slot said, “That has been something every team, by the way, has, so it’s again not an excuse for us because every team works with this. But what was a bit different, for example, for me [to] last season is that last season they all had one year [of] Premier League experience as a minimum and they were fit when we started and they stayed fit.”

“And now, they weren’t all fit from the start and some players have to play maybe even more than you want them to do, which is a risk for them getting injured as well. But it’s just the situation as it is and we have still more than enough good players available to play the game on Saturday, to play the game on Tuesday and to play the game on Sunday. But I have to take care of a few of them and that’s why I made the decision not to play seven or eight players two days ago.”

Giorgi Mamardashvili will continue to deputise for Alisson between the sticks, with Liverpool lining up in a 4-2-3-1 formation in front of him against Aston Villa on Saturday. The backline will feature Conor Bradley, Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk, and Andrew Robertson.

As for the midfield unit, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister will pair up in the double pivot, with Gravenberch being a backup option on the bench. Florian Wirtz will reprise the no. 10 role, with Mohamed Salah and Cody Gakpo being the two wide attackers. Finally, Hugo Ekitike will lead the line for the home side against Aston Villa on Saturday.

Predicted Liverpool XI: Mamardashvilli, Bradley, Konate, van Dijk, Robertson; Szoboszlai, Mac Allister; Salah, Wirtz, Gakpo; Ekitike