Alexander Isak was left out of Liverpool\u2019s matchday plans at Villa Park after Arne Slot decided not to risk the striker because of a fresh issue. Isak had returned from the treatment room in the draw with Chelsea, coming on for the final 20 minutes of a 1\u20131 game, but he did not register a shot, create a chance and completed only one pass.<\/p>\n
The forward had missed the Manchester United defeat on May 3 after a \u201creally small\u201d injury and was monitored closely during the week. Slot gave no indication in his midweek press conference that Isak would miss out, with attention on the fitness of Mohamed Salah and Florian Wirtz, both of whom were included in Friday\u2019s squad.<\/p>\n
Ahead of kickoff, Slot confirmed Isak was managing a \u201cminor injury\u201d and would be protected rather than risked. \u201cI think it\u2019s something we all understand,\u201d Slot argued, \u201cif you miss preseason, if you then have a broken leg, when you are coming back. We\u2019ve been really careful with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot named the following starting XI and bench for the trip:<\/p>\n
Starting XI: Giorgi Mamardashvili; Joe Gomez, Ibrahima Konat\u00e9, Virgil van Dijk, Milos Kerkez; Ryan Gravenberch, Curtis Jones, Alexis Mac Allister; Dominik Szoboszlai, Cody Gakpo, Rio Ngumoha.<\/p>\n
Substitutes: Freddie Woodman (GK), Florian Wirtz, Mohamed Salah, Federico Chiesa, Andy Robertson, Trey Nyoni, James McConnell, Mor Talla Ndiaye, Will Wright.<\/p>\n
There was positive news on other fronts: Wirtz and Salah were both fit enough for the bench. Wirtz has been dealing with a stomach infection in recent weeks. Salah, who had been sidelined with a hamstring problem, was pencilled in for a brief appearance as Slot said he would be limited to \u201ca few minutes\u201d while being eased back.<\/p>\n
Isak\u2019s layoff is not expected to be lengthy. Liverpool are thought to be hopeful that their marquee summer signing will be available for the season finale against Brentford at Anfield on Sunday, May 24, per the Daily Mail\u2019s Lewis Steele.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Isak withdrawn for Villa, Slot says minor injury means he will not be risked, and will be protected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13836,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[711,175,172],"tags":[195,1305,1384],"class_list":["post-13837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aston-villa","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-alexander-isak","tag-bench-selection","tag-broken-leg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}