Liverpool vs. Sunderland: Premier League 2025-26 Preview & Team News

| Wednesday, December 3rd |Premier League | Anfield8:15PM BST/3:15PM EST

Sunderland come into this match in an extremely strong position, and, per manager Régis Le Bris’ press conference, will relish the opportunity to play at Anfield, as venues like Anfield are the “privilege” they earned through their long-fought push for promotion. Sunderland have been amongst the hardest teams to play this season, with great energy and a very well-organized structure from top to bottom. They earned a home draw with Arsenal near the end of November and have beaten Chelsea away as well. They have yet to concede more than two goals in a game in all competitions this season, and have earned their place in the top half of the table.

In many ways they’re exactly what Liverpool do not want to face, and it’s worth noting that West Ham United tried exactly none of the things that had presented Liverpool with problems thus far this season. Sunderland work hard and seek to cause problems for their opposition, and have utilized set pieces effectively thus far — most recently in their comeback to win against Bournemouth. They take a lot of risks both on and off the ball, and will look to punish any Liverpool player having an off day, which has severely harmed the team in previous matches.

While Liverpool have, on occasion, struggled with individuals with poor form, Sunderland work very effectively as a unit, and the collective work rate makes them very hard to play against. They’re intense to play against and defend well as a unit. They combine the low block with pressing high, which allows them to remain unpredictable to their opponents and dictate the game effectively.

A potential positive? The Back Cats have not scored an away goal since October (though it was in their away win at Stamford Bridge). That said, their away games also feature the lowest goal tally in general, with just three scored and six conceded across the first six games.

Sunderland come to Anfield with no major/new injury concerns, and Dennis Cirkin and Leo Hjelde have recently featured for the youth side as the two look to regain match fitness. Habib Diarra, Aji Alese, and Ahmed Abdullahi remain sidelined.

Wilson Isidor is their top scorer this campaign (four goals in the Premier League this season), with Dan Ballard, Brian Brobbey, and Enzo Le Fee joint-second on two goals. Sunderland’s biggest asset is a known quantity: Granit Xhaka dictates play from the center of the park, and has a team high of four assists in the league. Liverpool will need to neutralize his presence should they hope to walk away with three points.

Predicted Liverpool Lineup (4-3-3)

Alisson; Szoboszlai, Konaté, Van Dijk, Robertson; Wirtz, Gravenberch, Mac Allister; Salah, Ekitiké, Gakpo

I’m going to rip the band-aid off right away: as much as Le Bris speaks about Anfield being a “special” place to play, Liverpool have not won at home in the league since the beginning of November, a 2-0 win against Aston Villa (which, it should be said, occurred in a strong week for Liverpool, who also dispatched Real Madrid with force). In present form, the home stadium is not a positive — unless the Reds score quickly. As it stands, the crowd can turn on the players quickly: against PSV there were audible shouts and perhaps boos as early as the 15-minute mark as some fans decided recycling the ball wasn’t aggressive enough.

Liverpool remain without both natural right backs in Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong, and Giovanni Leoni obviously also remains sidelined long-term. Arne Slot will make a late assessment of squad fitness ahead of Wednesday’s game, with a major question being on Joe Gomez’s ability to go again so soon. Should he be unable, we can expect to see something like the combined efforts of Dominik Szoboszlai and Curtis Jones in that squad role, which did work well to start against PSV before it all seemed to fall apart, or just one of them covering it himself.

Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak are just returning to the squad, and since the team had a recovery day after the match on Monday and thus hadn’t had time to train and assess at the time of Slot’s press conference their fitness levels are unclear. Wirtz is working to regain match fitness and will likely be available to start on Wednesday, with accumulating minutes looking to be a positive for him. In the case of Isak, it seems he ended Sunday’s match with cramp, so will be assessed more fully on Tuesday. As such, it’s likely we’ll see Hugo Ekitiké from the start.

Liverpool did well against West Ham United in refusing the opponents to get a foothold in the game, and such control against a much more challenging outfit will be necessary here. Should Liverpool concede first, the atmosphere is likely to make it harder for the Reds to press on rather than to support them in coming back. It’s worth noting here that Sunderland have won 12 points from losing positions this season, which is the highest of any club: even if Liverpool do take charge early, the Reds cannot expect the Black Cats to simply give up.

The Reds are unbeaten against Sunderland in the last 10 Premier League meetings (W6 D4) with Sunderland last winning at Anfield in the pre-Premier League days of 1983, though these records are notably against a much weaker version of the club than this current iteration. Liverpool might have some advantage when it comes to rhythm, as Sunderland are perhaps unused to playing mid-week, and the Reds have only lost one of their last 25 mid-week league kick-offs (against Everton, annoyingly, in 2024).

Mohamed Salah, should he feature, will be seeking his first goal against Sunderland — one of only four clubs he’s faced and not scored against in his Premier League career as a whole.

The Managers Have Their Say

Arne Slot: “Yeah, a big compliment for their manager because they brought in a lot of new players and they started off so well. I saw the game Chelsea against Arsenal on our way back home [from West Ham]. It was a very high standard game, two teams that were fighting each other and working so hard [with] all the players on the pitch. Then I was aware of the fact that Sunderland was the team that beat Chelsea in their stadium and had a draw against Arsenal. You can look at the league table by looking at how good they have done until now but after that game, knowing that Sunderland is a team that beat Chelsea and had a draw against Arsenal tells you how strong they must be..”

Régis Le Bris: “Every team can struggle – this league is tough. They play in the Champions League as well. They were strong against West Ham, they were dominant as expected. We will have to show the best version of Sunderland to be competitive.”

The Officials

Referee: Stuart Attwell Assistants: Constantine Hatzidakis, Adrian Holmes Fourth official: Dean Whitestone VAR: Tim Wood Assistant VAR: Matt Donohue

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