Arne Slot couldn’t help but burst out laughing at the first question which was put to him at his press conference on Friday morning.
The Liverpool head coach addressed the media ahead of his team’s showdown against Manchester United at Anfield on Sunday, with the two eternal rivals in wildly contrasting form and positions going into the fixture, which Gary Neville is openly dreading.
Whereas the Merseysiders have a six-point lead at the top of the Premier League (and a game in hand on second-placed Arsenal), the Red Devils are languishing in 14th after shipping five top-flight defeats over the past month.
Slot was asked by one reporter at this morning’s press conference whether, given Man United’s well-documented struggles and Liverpool’s hectic January fixture calendar, he’s planning to rest some players on Sunday.
The Reds boss could only laugh at that suggestion, replying “That’s a strange question!” before gathering himself a few second later and continuing (via Liverpool FC on YouTube): “No, of course I’m not planning to rest any player, because it’s a big game.
“I said it before the first fixture and I can say it one more time that they have much better players in my opinion than maybe the league table shows at the moment.
“It’s going to take a while maybe for Ruben Amorim to bring this out of the players, I don’t know, but they will definitely [improve] and they are much, much, much better than the league table shows at the moment.”
Rest players in a league fixture against Man United midway through the season when there’s still so much at stake? No wonder Slot was laughing at such a suggestion!
Yes, Liverpool have a wild fixture calendar this month and have accumulated just over double the number of points that their opponents can boast, but only the most arrogant or foolish of managers would even dream of option against fielding their strongest XI in a game like this with such an intense rivalry.
The Reds will have had a full week to prepare for the visit of their arch-rivals, so the players will already be nicely rested when Amorim’s side come to town, and the home side would be unwise in the extreme to think that the visitors will be anything other than hugely motivated to bloody our noses.
United were dominated for large spells of their three matches against us last season but didn’t lose any of them, with two top-flight draws and a fortuitous FA Cup victory, so nobody at LFC needs to be reminded of the dangers of complacency.
The febrile history of this fixture means that, even if it were a meeting with no great consequence for either side in that particular competition, neither manager would be allowed to treat it with ambivalence.
Rest assured that Slot will be naming his strongest possible XI on Sunday and will have his players fired up to strengthen Liverpool’s title ambitions while also inflicting more misery on our Manchester rivals.
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