Liverpool fixtures: Next six games after comeback win over Wolves

Jurgen Klopp tried not to get sucked into a debate over Liverpool’s scheduling ahead of the 3-1 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers but couldn’t resist calling the lunchtime kick-off a “joke”.

Liverpool were suitably groggy during Saturday’s early game before a second-half turnaround extended the club’s unbeaten league run to 16 matches. There will be no more pasta and chicken at breakfast for Klopp’s players until the other side of October’s international break but Liverpool’s upcoming fixture list is hardly forgiving.

With the Europa League and Carabao Cup both set to kick off, the Reds also face two of the Premier League’s fast starters.

Here’s what lies ahead for Klopp’s side.

The last time Liverpool played a Europa League match, Joe Allen featured for the Reds. The former cover star of Chicken & Egg magazine could not swing the tide of the 2016 final which Sevilla snatched after a second-half blitz of their own.

A fifth-placed Premier League finish last term has consigned Klopp’s side to Europe’s secondary club competition which begins with a first-ever meeting against Austrian side LASK.

In an incredible run stretching all the way back to 1963 – the same year that David Moyes was born – West Ham United have won just one of their last 58 trips to Anfield across all competitions.

Moyes has a similarly bleak record against his previous Merseyside rivals. The former Everton manager has failed to win all 19 of his away games against Liverpool.

Between Christmas and the start of March, Liverpool’s joint-top scorer was Leicester City‘s Wout Faes. The luckless Belgian bundled in a pair of own goals against the Reds on Leicester’s most recent visit to Anfield.

Faes may have taken Leicester’s subsequent relegation as a guarantee of avoiding Liverpool for at least one season but the draw for the third round of the Carabao Cup has reopened those wounds.

Ange Postecoglou has rapidly wrapped the Tottenham Hotspur fanbase in a warm embrace but the Australian manager was raised as a Liverpool fan.

“I grew up supporting Liverpool as well and I guess the reason I’m a manager today is because of the football club,” he has revealed in the past. “I grew up with the stories of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley and the Boot Room, Ronnie Moran, Joe Fagan, Roy Evans, all those guys.”

Klopp helped restore Liverpool’s reputation as a team to fear in European football but the players of Belgian side Union Saint-Gilloise were thrilled with the Europa League group stage draw.

A roar of approval cascaded up and down the seats of the plane as the players discovered their continental opponents. After reaching the competition’s quarter-finals last year, perhaps Liverpool should be a bit wary of facing Union.

Liverpool have been handed a Tony Bloom double-header in the space of three days to start October. The self-made millionaire owns Brighton, the club he grew up supporting, and is also a minority shareholder at Union Saint-Gilloise. Bloom had to reduce his stake at the Belgian side after both of his clubs qualified for this season’s Europa League.

While the visit of Union will certainly be tricky, a trip to the home of Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton is the envy of few – as Liverpool discovered earlier this year when they recorded consecutive defeats at the Amex in January.

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