Diego Costa, Álvaro Morata and João Félix are all expected to miss tonight’s game. Felix has already been ruled out with an illness, while Costa and Morata are doubts. Both will be evaluated today but estimates in the Spanish press range between little to no chance that we actually see them on the pitch.

Ángel Correa will once again assume the role as Atlético’s creative fulcrum in Diego Simeone’s ruthlessly rigid system.

Correa is having a solid if unspectacular season so far. He’s posted blah goal and assist numbers and middling, by his standards, advance metrics. He’s second on the team in xG Chain, a measure of his involvement in expected goals, averaging 0.82 xG chain per 90 minutes, good for 17th in La Liga. That’s much better than the number he posted a year ago, but still a drip from his 2017/18 season, when he was very much in the conversation as the most influential player in La Liga, non-Messi division.

Atlético’s goal-scoring record has been miserable all season. They’ve scored just 25 goals in 25 domestic games. A shift away from their rigid 4-4-2 in Europe to more of a wide-diamond look has greatly improved their attacking threat but hasn’t led to a chunk more goals.

Missing Morata and Costa tonight removes the target man that Simeone likes to play with, but Correa has a chance to be even more of a nuisance to Liverpool’s back-line. Correa has split time this year between playing wide on the right and centrally, starting at both seven times a pop.

Regardless of where he starts, Correa is always looking to either drop off or shift over into the pocket of space in front of the backline and behind the midfield. He’s a menace as a presser, famed for winning the ball back high up the pitch then igniting attacks, but he’s mist likely to do damage against Liverpool through his off-ball movement.

Correa likes to operate, essentially, as an inside-right. He functions a little bit further back up the pitch from a typical forward, working more as a support striker. He slips off into the inside-right channel, where he can run at defenders at an angle or can get to the byline and whip the ball across the box. That’s become his calling card: a classic winger play operated from a second-striker role. He doesn’t get down the line and whip it in, but usually prefers to operate on the axis that runs the length of the 18-yard box.

That style hasn’t worked well in tandem with João Félix. The pair clog one another’s natural habitat. Both want to drop off, to roam, to move, to draw the central defenders out before slipping the ball off then nipping in behind. They’re yet to perfect the you-go-then-I-go sort of partnership that elevates the very best

In that duo, Correa has often started out wide. Tonight, he’ll start centrally, with Yannick Carrasco pulling inside from the right-wing. It should be a better fit. Carrasco is more direct. He’s more eager to spent in-behind rather than dropping into space and trying to get on the ball and play.

The ex-Atleti winger returned in January after spending a couple of years out in China. And you can picture how he and Correa will work: Correa drifting out, dragging a central defender with him; Carrasco leaving the opposition right-back for dust as he jets into the space vacated by the centre-back, immediately onto his preferred left foot.

It will be a mental test more so than a physical one for Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and Andy Robertson. Outside of set pieces, it’s the one proven pattern of play that Atlético have that could affect an opponent given their injury woes upfront. It might even be worthwhile dropping Fabinho back into a man-marking role. The Brazilian is happy to work in wider areas if necessary.

Fail to pick up Correa, and he can punish you. Pick up Correa and ignore the corresponding movements into the vacated space — Carrasco knifing inside, midfielders bombing forward — and you’re in just as much trouble. Correa will be the key to everything Madrid does going forward. Shut him down, and Liverpool’s defence should be on their way to another clean sheet.