Andoni Iraola has attacking decisions to make with key duo out of Man City game

Liverpool head coach Andoni Iraola has ruled Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo out of the Manchester City clash. Pic: Peter Byrne/PA Wire.

Andoni Iraola heads into the biggest match of his short tenure as Liverpool head coach without Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo – admitting he has had little time to devise a back-up plan.

With Hugo Ekitike still recovering from a long-term Achilles injury, Iraola’s intention at the start of the season was for Gakpo to cover for the £125million Isak at centre forward.

However, both returned early from international duty and are not be available to face Manchester City in what promises to be a hostile atmosphere in their first match since being found guilty of over 100 charges relating to financial breaches.

Iraola’s remaining options are 21-year-old Lewis Koumas, who has made just six senior appearances and never started a Premier League match, winger Bradley Barcola or Florian Wirtz, who has been playing as a number 10.

The only other forwards he has at his disposal are wingers Victor Munoz and 18-year-old England international Rio Ngumoha.

“Alex Isak and Cody Gakpo will not play the game. They are not ready. They both don’t look like long-term,” said Iraola.

“Cody has an ankle injury and it’s a matter of him dealing with the pain. Alex has a thigh injury. It’s not a massive injury, it’s a small injury. Whenever he feels ready.

“Even before that we don’t have Hugo Ekitike, that is another striker I am looking forward to having available.

“We will maybe recover Fede Chiesa but he hasn’t played any minutes as he has been recovering from injury.

“Of the four number nines it’s true we probably have only Koumas but we have some other options, wingers who have played up front in other teams.

“Koumas has our trust. He has already shown in important minutes that he is ready to go.

“We also have other players who can cover the positions. Now we will need to make decisions.” While Iraola has known about the looming issue for more than a week there has been little he could do about it in terms of a fix as most of the squad did not return to training until Thursday.

“A lot of time we don’t have. But it is the same for every team, you cannot use it as an excuse,” he added.

“Obviously you’ve had a lot of time to watch a lot of games and analyse a lot of things but after you have to adapt because you have one injury to Alex at the beginning, then Cody and then you don’t know.

“But this is going to be even worse in the next days: we play City then we have two days and we play Champions League, we have two days and we play Brentford.

“It is going to be like this all the run of games, so we have to get used to these things.”