Liverpool may have just seen glimpse of the future with Sadio Mane goal

The demands on a team that are looking to win an unprecedented quadruple of trophies are unrelenting and unforgiving. Liverpool have won 24 of their last 28 matches in all competitions, and two of the four they didn’t had no impact upon their progress through the Champions League ties of which they were part. The Reds could not have realistically done any better in 2022.

What makes their form even more remarkable is that Jurgen Klopp has inevitably been unable to pick his first choice XI for every single match. Liverpool have played every weekend and midweek since the first week of January, so rotation has been the order of the day.

For the 2-1 win at Aston Villa, Andy Robertson was given the night off while the substitutes included Thiago Alcantara and Jordan Henderson. Arguably the most notable bench warmer was Mohamed Salah, with the Egyptian making just the 18 th sub appearance of his Reds career when he replaced Luis Diaz for the final 18 minutes.

For a game that Liverpool simply had to win – though that applies to all of them at the moment – it was a gamble for Klopp to not include the man who is the Premier League’s top goal scorer and leading assist provider. But then resting Salah at Newcastle didn’t prevent a win and neither did it on Tuesday evening.

While the Reds’ front three is nowhere near as set in stone as it once was, with the Liverpool manager having 10 combinations he can select from his five elite forwards, Salah is as good as guaranteed the berth on the right. However, Sadio Mane’s winning goal at Villa Park showed that Klopp has a trio in which he can trust should his number 11 be unavailable.

With 64 minutes gone, Matty Cash took a throw-in on the half way line, and Carney Chukwuemeka laid