Liverpool v Arsenal: Carabao Cup fourth round – live!

Liverpool’s captain for the night, James Milner, was speaking to our very own Donald McRae this week. Turns out, like most football fans everywhere, he’s not a fan of VAR.

So, Jürgen Klopp makes 11 changes from the win over Spurs on Sunday, including four teenagers with 18-year-old Neco Williams making his first-team debut. Among the other young whelps, Harvey Elliott, at 16 years and 209 days, will become the youngest player to appear for the club at Anfield, while Rhian Brewster and Sepp Van Den Berg make their Anfield debuts too. Joe Gomez, James Milner and midfielders Adam Lallana, Naby Keita and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain add a bit of experience.

For Arsenal, Mesut Özil makes only his third appearance of the season – and his first since 24 September. He’s not been seen in a matchday squad since his outing in the last round against Nottingham Forest but is one of 11 changes. Unai Emery has selected six players – excluding Özil – who could be considered first-team regulars, including Lucas Torreira, Sead Kolasinac and Ainsley Maitland-Niles. And it’s Hector Bellerin, not Özil (as had been rumoured), who captains the side. Well, someone’s got to.

Liverpool: Kelleher, Williams, Gomez. Van Den Berg, Milner, lallana, Keita, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Elliott, Origi, Brewster. Subs: Adrian, Jones, Kane, Larouci, Chirivella, Clarkson, Koumetio.

Arsenal: Martínez, Bellerin, Holding, Mustafi, Kolasinac, Torreira, Willock, Maitland-Niles, Özil, Saka, Martinelli. Subs: Macey, Sokratis, Tierney, Guendouzi, Ceballos, Pepe, Lacazette.

Referee: Andre Marriner.

Evening. It’s cards-on-the-table time – it’s hard to predict what might happen at Anfield this evening. That’s not a bad thing, because so much of modern football is too easy to predict. We can expect two vastly changed teams, with Liverpool perhaps more likely to field the most inexperienced XI, given their commitments in the Premier League and Europe, not to mention the Club World Cup in December. As for Unai Emery, the pressure is on at Arsenal, and even though he will not want to field a full-strength team, he might be minded to name a reasonably strong side to get a win on the board and keep open the prospect of some silverware down the line. With the beef between Granit Xhaka and Arsenal fans dominating headlines in the buildup to this game, Emery is acutely aware that Arsenal’s season is already shaping up to be a turbulent one.

Emery needs a response from his Arsenal team after the draw at home against Crystal Palace, even if the XI players who provide it are not regulars. As for Jürgen Klopp, as much as this competition is probably the lowest on his list of priorities this season, it still offers him the chance to give fringe Liverpool players a run out and give him an idea who might be first in line to come in when he has to rotate over the busy festive period. One person we should see this evening, is Mesut Özil, who is expected to captain Arsenal while Xhaka continues to let off steam. While we wait for team news, see if you can spot him in David Squires’s latest bit of brilliant doodling.