It was a different season for Fabio Carvalho when Liverpool and West Ham United last met.
In October, the attacking midfielder was enjoying a honeymoon at Anfield after arriving from Fulham for an initial £5m in the summer.
Carvalho scored for Bournemouth the following week in a 9–0 thrashing against Newcastle United. Carvalho appeared in eight of the first nine Premier League games, his third start on tour for the Hammers, following up his goal in Bournemouth’s 9–0 thrashing of Newcastle.
Although there were signs that Carvalho was having trouble settling in, the 20-year-old was substituted at half-time in successive starts at Everton – albeit with an injury-related injury – and at home to Brighton and Hove Albion and against West Ham hours earlier.
And, three days later, Carvalho managed before 62 minutes in a dreadful 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest.
Carvalho was only named on the bench for the reverse fixture at Anfield on Saturday, the fourth time he has not been called to Liverpool’s matchday squad in five Premier League games.
In fact, since that game at the City Ground, the player has featured for just five minutes in two short substitute appearances in the Premier League and had three cameos in the Champions League and three starts in domestic cup competitions, including a goal in the 3–2 League Cup fourth-round defeat at Manchester City.
Carvalho, born in Lisbon but moved to London 10 years ago, also became the subject of intrigue in November when he surprisingly turned down the chance to continue playing for Portugal U21s when called up for friendlies against the Czech Republic and Japan. He has represented England at various youth levels before.
Carvalho is likely to be absent again when the Reds are out at the London Stadium this evening, with the ongoing impact of the January signing of Cody Gakpo and increased competition for attacking places with the return to fitness of Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota.
While Jurgen Klopp has again detailed that the youngster has continued to impress in training, Carvalho has been linked with a potential loan move next season, with Porto reportedly interested.
The Reds boss, however, has not determined anything to maintain. “We want to make all these decisions with the boys before we talk about it (in public),” said Klopp. “There is no direction yet.
“All I can say is he’s been exceptional again in training this week and fantastic. So, we’ll talk to each other, and then we’ll see what we do – what he wants, what I think, but there’s still. There is no decision.”
Klopp will rotate his squad for the second five games in 15 days this evening. While midfielder Thiago Alcantara, attacker Harvey Elliott, and forward Darwin Nunez compete for the starting role, the Reds must decide whether they will continue using Trent Alexander-Arnold as an inverted full-back. Joel Matip and Joe Gomez are in contention to replace Ibrahima Konet at centre-back if the Frenchman can’t remove a relegation.
