Iraola leaves door open for Szoboszlai, Isak and Gakpo to face Brentford

Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola has refused to rule out Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo for Saturday’s Premier League visit to Brentford, saying the club still needs to assess the trio over the next two training sessions.

All three players missed Liverpool’s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City on Sunday and were absent again for Tuesday’s 6-3 Champions League win over LASK in Austria. Speaking on Thursday, Iraola stopped short of confirming they would miss a third consecutive match.

“It is early for us to say,” Iraola said. “We have two more training sessions. Obviously they were not ready for yesterday. We have to wait and see — I think it is still very early, but the same way I said that they were not available for the previous games, I will leave the chance open this time.”

Liverpool will also be without midfielder Ryan Gravenberch, who is suspended following his red card in the defeat to City, leaving Iraola with a stretched squad heading into a congested run of fixtures that includes a trip to Villarreal just three days after the Brentford game.

“We’ll need to change again at the weekend, we will need to change again when we face Villarreal,” Iraola said. “We need everyone. Everyone has to be ready because we will need him probably.”

Amid the injury concerns, Iraola drew encouragement from the performances of youngsters Trey Nyonyi and Lewis Koumas against LASK, as well as a breakout night for Bradley Barcola, who scored a hat-trick in the 6-3 victory — his first goals for the club.

Iraola was careful not to overstate the significance of Barcola’s treble, but acknowledged the growing confidence of the France international, who had not featured in pre-season. “It is always remarkable because he scored three goals in a Champions League game — not a lot of players can say that,” Iraola said. “But the best thing is we can see his confidence on the ball. Straight away from the beginning of the game you could feel that he was confident going into one-on-one situations, attacking the spaces, and those are his strengths.”