Liverpool produced a statement result at Anfield, beating Arsenal to record a third straight Premier League victory to open the season, but the win came with late fitness concerns. Both Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 and Florian Wirtz were withdrawn in the second half and left the pitch with the medical staff.<\/p>\n
Arne Slot offered a measured assessment of the two incidents. He was careful over Konat\u00e9, saying: “He thinks it is cramp and I have no reason to doubt him, although sometimes players talk about cramp and then we make a scan and it is more than that.” Slot underlined why he would not rush a judgement and referenced a recent example of a player who downplayed a problem. “Jeremie Frimpong wasn\u2019t too happy, like some pundits and journalists, when I took him off against Bournemouth because he thought he only had cramp, or only felt a little bit, and he is already out for two or three weeks now. Let\u2019s wait and see.” <\/p>\n
By contrast, Slot framed Wirtz\u2019s exit as the physical consequence of a testing debut. On Wirtz he said: “It wasn\u2019t an injury, it was a welcome to the Premier League ! After 85 minutes, I don\u2019t think he knew he could have cramp in so many different places and that\u2019s what happened. That is welcome to the Premier League, that is welcome to playing in this intensity against an Arsenal that can play really intense as well.” <\/p>\n
Off-field questions also persist. Konat\u00e9\u2019s contract runs until 2026 and his future has been a focus of transfer talk this summer, including reports of a possible free transfer next summer to Real Madrid. If he were to miss time, the transfer-linked Marc Gu\u00e9hi from Crystal Palace could become more important to Slot\u2019s plans.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s squad depth, particularly in defence, is a concern at the start of the campaign. Dominik Szoboszlai has filled in at right back for the sidelined Frimpong in consecutive matches and produced the decisive goal at Anfield. Left back Kostas Tsimikas completed a loan move to Roma after the game. The club now have two weeks before the September international break to restore full fitness across the squad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot gave measured updates after Liverpool beat Arsenal, cautious on Konat\u00e9 and upbeat on Wirtz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[299,206,409],"class_list":["post-2316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-arne-slot","tag-florian-wirtz","tag-ibrahima-konate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316","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=2316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}