1994 was a year when Bill Clinton was still a USA president, and Nelson Mendela was just selected in South Africa, FIFA World Cup was played in that country (Brazil won), O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his wife, Kurt Kobain out of Nirvana committed suicide and Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction movies came out. Oh, and Newcastle defeated Liverpool at Anfield. 27 years after, the Magpies are still looking for another win. And they will keep looking, since there is hardly a chance that relegation strugglers Newcastle, with the worst defense in the league can do anything against league’s top offense, led by Mohamed Salah. Liverpool have won 1,999 of their 4,226 top-flight matches and would be the first ever side to win 2,000 English top-flight contests with victory against lowly Magpies, which seems highly likely. Jurgen Klopp is probably very happy to play against the Magpies too. He lost his first match against them in December 2015 but Liverpool are unbeaten in their last nine since then. And Mohamed Salah has break many record so far, but could have another one tonight. Salah has either scored or assisted a goal in each of his last 14 Premier League appearances, just one short of Jamie Vardy’s record of 15 set between August and December 2015. The Egyptian has also scored one goal in four consecutive Premier League games against Newcastle at Enfield. Drogba: ‘When I see Salah I want to cry’And what’s even worse, Klopp will have almost all of his players available, as Firmino is back into the team following a hamstring injury at the beginning of November. So, the Reds boss is relaxed ahead of this match, but also about AFCON. Even thou he will be without three key players in January (Mane, Salah, Keita), the German tactician decided not to make any excuses over it. “In football, you can be the better team and win a game and you can be the better team and lose a football game. You can have a plan and win a football game and you can have no plan and win a football game. It’s all possible. Whoever will play in a period when the three boys are not here will have a plan and gives us the chance to win a football game. Can we play exactly the same football? Probably not, but who cares. We play the football we are able to play then, that’s the situation. The three boys helped us so much in the last few years and we knew that they were from Africa when signing them. They have been so important in all these situations but now they are probably not here, so that’s the situation. You can’t always have the perfect solution. In this case, it’s absolutely far away from being perfect without these players. But we knew it, and now we have to deal with it” said Klopp.
