Teixeira Included in Liverpool’s Europa League Squad

Liverpool fans spent January hoping there’d be a Teixeira arriving at the club—Shakhtar Donestsk’s Brazilian attacker Alex Teixeira. He never did arrive, and now might be heading to China instead, but one of the biggest oversights of the autumn has at least been addressed with Liverpool submitting their squad list for the knockout rounds of the Europa League.

For many of those same fans, that autumn oversight was the omission of another Teixeira—22-year-old attacking midfielder Joao Carlos Teixeira. Time time around, though, he’s in the Europa League squad, along with returning loanee Danny Ward and the recently signed Steven Caulker, who arrived in January on a short-term loan to help with the club’s defensive depth crisis.

Adam Bogdan makes way for Ward, with the back-up goalkeeper having entirely fallen out of favour with Jürgen Klopp. Season-ending injuries to Danny Ings and Joe Gomez mean they have also come out of the Europa League squad, making way for Teixeira and Caulker. Somewhat surprisingly, Jon Flanagan has once again been left out of the Europa League squad.

This omission seems especially odd since as a club trained player there’s room for him. Clubs are allowed to register up to 25 players to their List A squad, with the caveat that at least eight must be homegrown and that four of those eight, at a minimum, must be club trained. If a club does not have enough club trained and home grown players, they can name fewer List A players.

Looked at another way, a club with zero homegrown and club-trained players could only name a 17-man squad for the Europa League. In Liverpool’s case, they have only named a 21-man squad because they fall short when it comes to club trained players. Flanagan, though, is club trained, meaning he could be added freely and a 22-man squad List A could be submitted.

Players 21 years of age or younger who have been at the club for two seasons do not have to be registered to the List A squad and can be freely added to the List B squad during the competition.

Liverpool’s Europa League squad List A in full:

Goalkeepers: Simon Mignolet, Danny Ward
Defenders: Steven Caulker, Nathaniel Clyne, Dejan Lovren, Alberto Moreno, Mamadou Sakho, Martin Skrtel, Kolo Toure
Midfielders: Joe Allen, Emre Can, Philippe Coutinho, Jordan Henderson, Adam Lallana, Lucas Leiva, James Milner, Joao Carlos Teixeira
Attackers: Christian Benteke, Roberto Firmino, Divock Origi, Daniel Sturridge