Mohamed Salah injury update: will he play for Liverpool against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final?

Liverpool attacker Mohamed Salah had looked to be back at full fitness after making his return from a hamstring injury against Brentford last Saturday, but his participation in Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Chelsea has been thrown into doubt by his omission from the matchday squad in the home win over Luton Town on Wednesday.

Why could Salah miss the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea?

The 31 year old featured in every single match bar one for The Reds from the beginning of the season until he went off to play in the Africa Cup of Nations, where he suffered a hamstring issue in Egypt’s second Game of the tournament against Ghana on 18 January. Following The Pharaohs’ elimination 10 days later, Salah sat out Liverpool’s next three Premier League fixtures and the FA Cup victory against Norwich before making a spectacular return to action against Brentford less than a week ago.

After being named as a substitute by Jürgen Klopp, the forward replaced the injured Diogo Jota just before half time and picked up where he had left off, providing a splendid assist for Alexis MacAllister early in the second half before scoring his team’s third goal in a 4-1 triumph in London.

It seemed as if normal service would resume from that moment on, until he was left out of Wednesday’s win over Luton, just four days before they face Chelsea in the final of the Carabao/EFL Cup, the first of four trophies the Merseysiders are hoping to win this season.

Liverpool injury update: Salah, Núñez, Szoboszlai, Alexander-Arnold, Jota, Alisson...

On Friday, Klopp’s assistant Pep Lijnders revealed to the media that Salah, along with Dominik Szoboszlai and Darwin Núñez, didn’t play in midweek because of their injury problems but all were in with a chance of featuring against The Blues, although the decision on whether they played will be made late in the day.

“We really have to see. We have two more days,” said the Dutchman. “Then we will check if they can be there. It would be great to be honest.”

Linders confirmed Liverpool, who have been ravaged by injuries in recent weeks, would be without goalkeeper Alisson, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Jota and Curtis Jones, as had already been anticipated, while midfielders Thiago Alcântara and Stefan Bajcetic don’t appear to be ready to make their returns just yet.