Liverpool are set to lock horns with Southampton this weekend but Arne Slot’s latest comments imply that we may be in for a tough time due to a huge number of missing players.
After first confirming five men would miss the game injured, our head coach then discussed the impact of international football by stating: “That’s not different to any other game. The only difference there is now that you always wonder the players who have played in South America how they come back.
“[They] normally [have] jet lag as well. That’s the only difference maybe between team selection for now than for all the other games because in all the other games you also look at the players and get the information from your staff members and look at the opponent.”
Arne Slot’s South American players could cause headaches
Seeing as Darwin Nunez, Luis Diaz and Alexis Mac Allister were all playing football in South America this week, we can read into this that they too are a doubt for action this weekend because of possible jet lag and fatigue.
If that was to be the case then the Reds could be without up to eight players for the trip to St.Mary’s which is far from ideal, especially with the match against the newly promoted side being followed by clashes with Real Madrid and Manchester City.
Add on that our No.9 was withdrawn at half time for Uruguay, there may be questions over his health on top of the mileage he’s travelled this week and thus he’s even less likely to feature.
It’s a selection dilema that our new boss has yet had to deal with and let’s hope this huge figure of players is something that only decreases before our next game and for the rest of the campaign.
You can watch Slot’s comments on the Liverpool squad (from 7:00) via Liverpool FC on YouTube:
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