Because Liverpool are currently the best team in England and Europe, we’re not being allowed to mention the fact that we’re being crippled by injuries but Arne Slot has finally been allowed to.
Speaking in front of the press before our match with Manchester City, the Dutchman was asked whether he thinks our fitness concerns have been ‘underplayed’ this season and stated:
“I think in general people only talk about injuries if the results are not there, so it’s a good thing that nobody talked about our injuries.
“That means that we got our results in. But the moment you start to lose it’s about a kick-off time on a Saturday afternoon or it’s about injuries or we always come up with certain ideas why, especially me, we didn’t win.
“But nine out of 10 times it’s about the quality of the players from the other team or their game plan.
“We do have some very important players for us being injured but if the replacements do so well it’s normal that people don’t talk about it that much.
“It is true that missing Alisson, which has been a starter for this club and been so important for this club for so long, missing Diogo Jota [and] missing Trent in the last two games – those are players that have had impact a lot on the results in recent years.
“But it’s a good thing we don’t talk about it.”
It’s a typically classy answer from our head coach who always seems to find a way of addressing and highlighting a problem, thus putting it in the public eye, but does so without making an outrageous claim that creates negative headlines.
Had the 46-year-old said that we were being unfairly judged it would have created more headlines in a negative sense but this was superb.
Seeing as he had to start the press conference with confirmation that Ibou Konate and Conor Bradley were our latest players to sit on the treatment table – it’s not like the issue is going away.
The only solace we can take is the confirmation that Trent Alexander-Arnold has been declared fit enough to start the next match with Manchester City.
Fingers crossed we can secure victory, open up an 11-point gap and not pick up any more injuries!
You can view the injury comments from Slot via Liverpool FC on YouTube:
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