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Who: Liverpool vs Brighton
What: English Premier League
Where: Anfield in Liverpool, United Kingdom
When: Saturday, December 9, at 3pm (15:00)
How to follow: We’ll have all the buildup on Al Jazeera Sport from 12:00 GMT in advance of our text commentary stream.

All eyes will be on the Liverpool team sheet when it is released at roughly the same time the bus carrying the squad will arrive at Anfield for the Brighton match on Saturday.

Speculation is rife that the Premier League match could be Mohamed Salah’s last for the defending champions, following the public fallout with the club.

The Reds, and their beleaguered manager Arne Slot, will hope the focus is very much on the football and turning around a form book that has seen the Merseyside club fall to 10th in the table.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a closer look at a game that will be the focus of the Saturday agenda in the English top flight, and beyond.

What is the latest on Salah’s future at Liverpool?

Salah has not started a game for Liverpool since the 4-1 defeat at PSV Eindhoven in the UEFA Champions League on November 26.

The Egyptian forward was benched for the following three Premier League games and, following fierce criticism of the club’s treatment of him, was then dropped from the squad that travelled to Italy to face Inter Milan on Tuesday – a game the Reds won 1-0.

Speculation has mounted surrounding a move to the Saudi Pro League since Salah’s outburst following last Saturday’s 3-3 draw at Leeds United, when the 33-year-old claimed he had been “thrown under the bus” for their recent woes on the field.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot said on Friday morning that he would speak with Salah to decide whether the forward would return to the match-day squad for the Brighton game.

The eyes and ears of the world, and in particular in Saudi Arabia, will be on the Anfield club for news of the team and the squad before kickoff against Brighton on Saturday.

What has Liverpool’s form been in the Premier League this season?

The Reds have lost six of their games in the Premier League this season – part of a run that saw them lose nine of 12 games in all competitions.

The struggling title holders have taken five points from their last three league games, however, starting with a 2-0 win at West Ham – the first game of Salah’s exile from the starting lineup.

The last two matches, though, have seen the Reds held to a 1-1 home draw by newly promoted Sunderland, before the draw at Leeds that led to Salah’s outburst.

What has Brighton’s form been in the Premier League this season?

Brighton’s solid season sees them sit two places above Liverpool on goal difference.

A win for either side could result in them climbing as high as fourth.

One league win in five to begin the season left the Seagulls sitting slightly perilously, but a run of only two defeats in 11 in the English top flight followed, with six wins in that time.

That form had expectations flying high on the south coast before two home games, but a 4-3 defeat by Aston Villa was followed by a 1-1 draw with West Ham in their last match.

We go again. pic.twitter.com/2tFFXx1Bh9

What happened the last time Liverpool played Brighton?

Brighton were 3-2 winners in a Premier League fixture on May 19, in the last encounter between the sides.

Liverpool twice took the lead in the first half of the game at Amex Stadium through Harvey Elliott and Dominik Szoboszlai.

Yasin Ayari’s 31st-minute goal kept the Seagulls in the game at the break before Kaoru Mitoma and Jack Hinshelwood, who netted five minutes from time, turned the game around in the second period.

What happened in the corresponding fixture between Liverpool and Brighton last season?

Liverpool were 2-1 winners in the preceding match at Anfield last season, but were forced to come from behind after Ferdi Kadioglu gave the away team the lead in the 14th minute.

The Seagulls held the lead until the 70th minute, when Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah scored twice in three minutes to set up the win.

Head-to-head

This is the 44th meeting between the sides, with Liverpool winning 23 of those encounters and Brighton emerging victorious on 8 occasions.

The fixture dates back to 1907 and an FA Cup tie at Anfield, where Brighton secured a 1-1 draw. Liverpool made no mistake in the reply, however, winning 3-0 on the south coast.

Brighton would have to wait a further six games for their first win against Liverpool, a 3-1 victory in the old second division of English football (now known as the Championship).

Liverpool team news

There is a question mark over Alexander Isak’s status for Saturday, with Slot saying the forward picked up a knock in the first half against Inter Milan, and that he will be evaluated on Friday before they decide whether or not he can start.

Slot is pleased with how Isak and Hugo Ekitike have played together, saying their partnership will continue to improve.

“The more they play together, the more they will adapt to each other and the better they will cooperate,” Slot said. “I saw promising things from the both of them, it’s only the second time they’ve played together. We will see more of them playing together in the future.”

Slot will have Federico Chiesa available on Saturday after he recovered from illness, while Wataru Endo and Cody Gakpo are expected to be out for a “few weeks”.

Brighton team news

Stefanos Tzimas, Solly March, Adam Webster are all absent with knee injuries, while James Milner is also out for several months with a muscle problem.

Kaoru Mitoma will have a fitness test as he attempts a comeback from an ankle problem which has kept him out since September.

Yasin Ayari and Tom Watson could both return from knocks, but both are still being monitored at this stage.

Predicted Liverpool starting lineup:

Alisson; Gomez, Konate, van Dijk, Kerkez; Jones, Gravenberch, Mac Allister; Szoboszlai, Isak, Wirtz

Predicted Brighton starting lineup:

“The tents are gone, the clothes are gone, our food is gone.” Displaced Palestinians in Gaza fled Israeli bombardment with what little they could carry. Those items are now waterlogged and destroyed by flooding, as one man in Deir el-Balah told Al Jazeera’s Ibrahim al-Khalili.

In her second public appearance after more than a year in hiding, Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado has promised that, one way or another, the presidency of Nicolas Maduro will end.

Speaking to reporters in Oslo, Norway, on Friday, Machado added that she was still hopeful that a change in leadership in Venezuela would be peaceful.

“Maduro will leave power, whether it is negotiated or not negotiated,” Machado said in Spanish. “I am focused on an orderly and peaceful transition.”

Her latest statement comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump maintains its buildup of military forces in the Caribbean.

The Trump administration has repeatedly struck alleged drug smuggling boats in the region, in what experts say amounts to extrajudicial killings. The president has also, in recent days, repeatedly threatened to begin operations on Venezuelan territories, in what he has characterised as actions to stem illegal drug flows from the country.

Maduro has accused the Trump administration of seeking to topple his government. Some critics have accused the US of aiming to open up Venezuela’s vast oil reserves to US and Western companies.

Machado, who remains popular in the Latin American country but was barred from running in last year’s presidential election, has been seen by many as Washington’s favourite to replace Maduro.

The opposition has maintained that Machado’s replacement, Edmond Gonzalez, won the July polls by a landslide, with a group of independent election experts later legitimising their evidence. Maduro has continued to claim victory.

On Thursday, Machado emerged in Oslo, Norway, where she received the Nobel Peace Prize after evading a travel ban in her home country.

Praise for Trump’s pressure

The 58-year-old opposition leader has aligned herself closely with Trump and Venezuela hawks in the Republican Party.

She has praised several actions taken by the Trump administration to pressure Maduro, including the US seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean earlier this week.

Machado called Trump’s actions “decisive” in weakening Maduro’s government.

She has been more circumspect on the prospect of military action on Venezuelan territory, saying only on Thursday that Venezuela “has already been invaded”.

“We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, operating freely in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels,” she said.

On Friday, she predicted that Venezuela’s armed forces would comply with a transition of power.

“I have confidence that the immense majority of the Venezuelan armed forces and the police are going, in the instant that the transition begins, to obey orders, guidelines, instructions from the superiors who will be designated by the civil authority duly elected by Venezuelans,” she said.

Experts have warned that any transition would need to be carefully negotiated with political and military officials to avoid an internal conflict.

Speaking at a briefing earlier this week, Francesca Emanuele, senior policy associate for Latin America at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), noted that Maduro’s Chavismo ideology, named after former leader Hugo Chavez, remains a strong political force in Venezuela, while segments of the opposition are also staunchly opposed to US military interventions.

A deeply entrenched system of corruption and patronage will also make many military officials hesitant to change allegiances, she explained.

“The military won’t want to leave the government of Maduro if they don’t have amnesties, if there is no negotiation, so we [could] see a very horrible, devastating conflict in Venezuela that would spread in the region,” she said in reference to a possible US military intervention.

No indication of easing up

For its part, the Trump administration has shown little indication that it planned to alleviate pressure.

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt would not rule out future seizures of sanctioned vessels off Venezuela’s coast.

On Friday, Reuters news agency reported that Admiral Alvin Holsey, who leads US military forces in Latin America, would retire early.

Three US officials and two people familiar with the matter told the news agency that Holsey was forced out by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over frustrations with his response to the Pentagon’s increasingly aggressive strategy in the region.

Holsey has not publicly explained the reason for his retirement.

The European Union is expected to indefinitely freeze hundreds of billions of Russian funds held in Europe in line with a plan to use the cash to support Ukraine.

The bloc’s members were expected to approve the plan on Friday to immobilise 210 billion euros ($246bn) worth of Russian sovereign assets for as long as necessary, through a qualified majority vote, instead of voting every six months on extending the asset freeze.

That would equate to the support of at least 15 of the bloc’s 27 member states, representing 65 percent of the EU population.

The move is an important step that would allow EU leaders to hash out the specifics of a plan at a summit to use billions in frozen Russian Central Bank assets to underwrite a massive loan that would assist Ukraine in meeting its financial and military needs.

The 210 billion euros in Russian assets are frozen in Europe as a result of EU sanctions on Moscow over its war on Ukraine, with the vast majority held in Euroclear, a Belgian financial clearing house.

The expected decision, which would stay in place until the immediate threat posed by the EU’s economic interests subsided, would replace the current arrangement where the freeze on the funds needs to be re-approved every six months unanimously.

That situation has raised concerns that Hungary and Slovakia, which have closer relations to Moscow than other states and oppose further support to Ukraine, could vote to block a rollover of the sanctions and force the EU to return the funds to Russia.

Orban slams move

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the Kremlin’s closest ally in Europe, railed against the expected decision on Friday, accusing the European Commission, which prepared the measure, “of systematically raping European law”.

He said the anticipated move means that “the rule of law in the European Union comes to an end, and Europe’s leaders are placing themselves above the rules.”

“It is doing this in order to continue the war in Ukraine, a war that clearly isn’t winnable,” he wrote.

Belgium, where Euroclear is based, is also opposed to the bloc’s “reparations loan” plan, saying it “entails consequential economic, financial and legal risks”.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Central Bank said on Friday that it had filed a lawsuit in Moscow against Euroclear for damages it claims were caused due to the stripping of Russian control of the frozen billions.

In a separate statement, the Central Bank said the wider EU plans to use Russian assets to aid Ukraine were “illegal, contrary to international law”, and in breach of “the principles of sovereign immunity of assets”.

Fighting continues

As the legal battle over frozen funds heats up in Europe, fighting continues to rage on the battlefield. Ukrainian forces said they had retaken parts of the front-line town of Kupiansk in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, and had encircled Russian troops there.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy released a video visiting the area, where he praised the troops’ efforts and said their results were strengthening Kyiv’s hand diplomatically, as Washington pushes Kyiv to make major territorial concessions to end the nearly four-year war.

“Today, it is extremely important to achieve results on the front lines so that Ukraine can achieve results in diplomacy,” Zelenskyy said in the clip, which showed him wearing a bulletproof vest at the entrance to Kupiansk.

Ukraine’s Khartiia Corps of the National Guard said it had liberated several northern districts of Kupiansk, while Russian supply routes had been cut off and several hundred Russian troops were surrounded.

In other movements on the battlefield, Ukraine said it had retaken the settlements of Kindrashivka and Radkivka in the northern Kharkiv region.

Ukraine claims strikes in Caspian Sea

As the warring neighbours intensified their attacks far beyond the front line, Ukraine’s special forces have claimed to have hit two Russian ships transporting weapons and military equipment in the Caspian Sea, in an operation they said was carried out in coordination with a “local resistance movement”.

The statement on Friday, posted on Telegram, said two vessels – the Composer Rakhmaninoff and the Askar-Sarydzha – had been struck off the coast of the Russian republic of Kalmykia. Both vessels had been sanctioned by the US for transferring military loads between Iran and Russia, it said.

The statement said the operation had been carried out with the assistance of a resistance movement it named as “Black Spark”, which it said had provided detailed information on the ships’ movements and cargoes.

It did not provide details on the location and nature of the strike, or the extent of any damage.