Liverpool travel to Austria for their Champions League clash with LASK severely short-handed in attack, with just 15 senior outfield players in the squad. The Reds are without injured forwards Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo, as well as long-term absentees Hugo Ekitike, Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni.
Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo are also ineligible for the trip. Head coach Andoni Iraola has called up academy youngsters Jayden Danns, Joshua Sonni-Lambie, James McConnell, Luke Chambers and Wellity Lucky to bolster his ranks.
Depleted attacking options
Iraola's available attacking options are Danns, Sonni-Lambie, Bradley Barcola, Victor Munoz, Rio Ngumoha and Lewis Koumas. Between them, the six players have scored just seven goals for Liverpool, with none in Europe and only three in the Premier League. Danns leads the group with three career goals for the club.
By contrast, the injured quintet of Szoboszlai, Isak, Gakpo, Ekitike and Chiesa have a combined 113 goals for Liverpool. Virgil van Dijk, Florian Wirtz, Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch are the only players in the travelling squad to have previously scored in the Champions League for the Reds, with a combined 13 goals in the competition. Mac Allister leads that group with six.
Previous visit to LASK
Liverpool won 3-1 the last time they visited LASK in September 2023, though that Europa League tie saw Jurgen Klopp field a stronger squad than Iraola can now call upon. Klopp made 11 changes from the previous league victory over Wolves, yet still started Van Dijk, Ibrahima Konate, Luis Diaz, Darwin Nunez and Gravenberch, with Mohamed Salah, Szoboszlai, Mac Allister, Joel Matip and Joe Gomez on the bench.
Nunez and Diaz scored quick-fire goals around the hour mark before Salah came off the bench to wrap up the scoring late on.
Salah's resurgence at Trabzonspor
Salah left Liverpool in the summer after seeing out the final year of his contract, joining Trabzonspor on a free transfer. He scored 12 goals in his final season at Anfield, seven in the Premier League, taking his overall Liverpool tally to 257.
Just nine games into his Trabzonspor career, Salah has already equalled his final-season league goal return. The 34-year-old has seven goals and three assists in his first seven Turkish Super Lig appearances, including a hat-trick in a 4-0 win over league leaders Galatasaray. He is the joint-leading scorer and playmaker in the Turkish top flight and has set a domestic record as the fastest player to reach 10 goal contributions in the league's modern history.
Salah is currently 12th on the all-time Champions League scoring list with 54 goals, with Vinicius Junior the nearest active player behind him on 34. During nine seasons at Liverpool, Salah made 85 Champions League appearances and scored 48 goals, missing only three matches in the competition altogether.
His only injury-enforced absence came when a concussion kept him out of the famous 4-0 win over Barcelona in 2019. He was rested for a dead-rubber against PSV Eindhoven in January 2025 and left out of a win at Internazionale on disciplinary grounds. He was also an unused substitute in a 2-0 defeat at Paris Saint-Germain last season.
Salah's return to form in Turkey serves as a reminder of his talent at a time when Liverpool's attack has been left threadbare.
