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This game is a chance for us to confirm our place in the knockout stages and avoid having to go through the play-off route. A win would also maintain our 100% record and keep us top. Bear in mind it's in the earlier kick-off time. Girona are newcomers to the Champions League after finishing a surprise 3rd in La Liga last season. Lack of European football and an early exit from the Copa Del Rey meant that they and their coach Michel could concentrate on the league, and they did it by finishing on 81 points, 5 points ahead of 4th placed Atletico. They’ve found it much tougher going this time round as their squad has to cope with the European schedule. In La Liga they sit outside the top 6 and have just been demolished 3-0 at home by Real Madrid. A major reason behind their difficulties this season is the loss of several key players from last season, most of whom were loanees. They are part of the City Football Group sportwashing projects so could use their connections to secure some players with a City connection like Savinho (who has signed for City), Yan Couto (now on loan at Dortmund from City) and Eric Garcia (Barcelona signed him from City and loaned him to Girona last season). They also sold Aleix Garcia to Leverkusen in the summer, along with top scorer Artem Dovbyk to Roma. In the summer, they brought in another raft of loanees which include players with Premier League experience such as Arnaut Danjuma, Bryan Gil and Oriol Romeu. In addition to that, they added Czech international Ladislav Krejci from Sparta Prague (from what I’ve seen of him, he’s decent but error-prone), Colombia international Yaser Asprilla from Watford (he is their record signing, and I’ve no idea if he’s related to Faustino), plus Dutchman Donny van de Beek from the Mancs, who had one or two good seasons at Ajax under Ten Hag but has been shit ever since moving to the Mancs for over £35m 4 years ago. In the Champions League, they’ve been propping up the table alongside the Red Bull clubs. I suspect that Slot was going to use this game to rotate his squad a bit, maybe giving a starting place to the likes of Jarrel, Tyler, Endo and Harvey. He would have preferred if we had some of our injured players available to allow the available ones to have their minutes managed a bit more prior to the upcoming festive schedule. The derby postponement is probably a bit of a benefit as it gives a few the chance to rest up a little bit and re-energise. Macca is suspended for the game (he’ll also miss the Fulham game as he would have been suspended for the derby were it not postponed), but maybe Slot will think he can go stronger than expected for this one. Hopefully Ali and Diogo are closer to being in contention for the squad (and thus our upcoming schedule), and maybe Fede will be brought out of cold storage and be involved. Unfortunately thus far his story is similar to that of every other Italian to don a Liverpool jersey, as they’ve either not been all that (Paletta, Padelli, Dossena, Balotelli) and/or have tended to be injury-prone (Aquilani, Borini). We need him to be a viable option and buck the trend of Italians at Liverpool. Lastly I’d say Darwin needs this game badly to show that he can still be a handful as well as take his chances. We haven’t had that game from him at all yet, and he arrived over 2 years ago. He could do with a game where he delivers a conversion rate like the cave troll. How have our previous managers got on in their first game against Girona? Well, this is the first time we’ll have played them so there is literally no history there. I don't ask for much. Maximum motivation, control, application, attitude and concentration from minute one. 3 points please. Get it done!