Fear Anfield, celebrate Klopp's absence, Southampton are Liverpool's boys

With just eight days to go until the Qatar 2022 World Cup kicks off, competitions such as the Premier League are experiencing their final moments in the limelight as England's 20 teams, but especially Liverpool, look to close out their participation in the best possible way so they can return on a high in a month's time when the competition resumes on the much-vaunted Boxing Day, with the Reds' final challenge of the month coming against a Southampton side who are not quite as terrified of competing at Anfield.

Both the Reds and Saints arrive with a huge question mark on the bench for the 90 minutes at Anfield, for while the home side are unsure how they will handle a game without the effusive guidance of a Jurgen Klopp who will have to pay his sporting penalty after his sending off against Manchester City, on the away side the doubts arise with a manager who will begin to take his first steps at a Southampton side in desperate need of results to avoid sinking too low in the table.

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Liverpool's strange relationship with Southampton
While Nathan Jones' short experience in charge of a Premier League side may at first appear less of a challenge for Liverpool, the reality is that this type of manager and unreliable teams over the course of a season have been the Reds' main tormentors so far, and it has been a nightmare for Klopp and his staff to watch as they have dropped crucial points against the likes of Nottingham Forest and Leeds United.

Despite the Southampton boss acknowledging that Anfield is an arena that can cause fear in their opponents, the Welsh-born tactician prefers to feed entirely on those positive feelings that are more geared towards excitement and motivation, looking to kill two birds with one stone in this game and break an important run of negative results on Merseyside while at the same time trying to get out of the second-bottom spot that they still occupy before the whistle.

Liverpool must win

Even without Klopp at the helm for this match, Liverpool cannot afford another adverse result in the remainder of this year if their aspirations are still set on those European competition positions for 2023, because even though the history of this clash has been very favourable for the Reds in recent years, the Merseyside institution is not exempt that their rival can beat them in front of their people and emulate a similar result to that of 2017 in the Carabao Cup.