‘Positive news’ – James Pearce will delight Liverpool fans with big update ahead of Spurs clash | OneFootball

James Pearce has provided Liverpool fans with some very welcome news in the lead-up to their Premier League clash against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday.

The immense satisfaction of a hard-earned win over Brighton last weekend was slightly tempered by the sight of Dominik Szoboszlai being forced off with an ankle injury in the final quarter-hour of the match, having taken a heavy landing after jumping to evade a slide tackle from Kaoru Mitoma.

There were encouraging reports from his native Hungary earlier this week as initial scans on the 25-year-old didn’t reveal any major problem, and the outlook for the fixture in north London now looks even brighter.

James Pearce provides injury updates on Liverpool trio

On Wednesday afternoon, The Athletic reported that Liverpool’s number 8 is hopeful of being passed fit to play against Spurs, having responded well to treatment since last Saturday, with Pearce sharing a link to the article via X along with describing it as ‘positive news’.

LFC medical staff will continue to monitor him closely before deciding on Friday whether he’ll get the green light to face Thomas Frank’s side. If that game comes too soon for him, he should almost certainly be back for Wolves’ visit to Anfield two days after Christmas.

Elsewhere, Joe Gomez is set to miss the fixture on Saturday with a hamstring injury, but the damage is understood to be ‘relatively minor’, while Jeremie Frimpong is on the verge of being cleared for a return to full team training after being sidelined for the past two months.

(Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

Szoboszlai being cleared to play would be huge for Liverpool

There’s no guarantee yet that Szoboszlai will be passed fit for the Spurs game, but Pearce’s update suggests that there’s a strong likelihood of the Hungarian being given the green light.

His availability on Saturday could be all the more vital with Mo Salah having departed for the Africa Cup of Nations, and Gomez and Frimpong set to be ruled out (thus increasing the possibility that our number 8 may need to play some minutes at right-back, although Conor Bradley is back from a ban).

On that note, there’s a possibility that Liverpool will soon have to do without the 25-year-old for an upcoming fixture, as he’s currently just one yellow card away from reaching the threshold of five to trigger a suspension.

If Szoboszlai can get through our next three Premier League games without a booking, though, the bar for incurring a one-match ban will then increase to 10 yellow cards across the campaign. It means that, if his fifth caution doesn’t come until the Fulham match on 4 January, he won’t be suspended for the visit to Arsenal four days later.

In the more immediate term, keep those fingers crossed that he’ll be cleared for action against Spurs on Saturday and can repeat his goalscoring feat from the corresponding fixture just under a year ago, when we won 6-3 in north London.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Brighton press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube: