Arne Slot described Florian Wirtz\u2019s second-half withdrawal against Leeds United as a precaution driven by load management after the German playmaker\u2019s recent hamstring issue. Wirtz was not the only player to struggle in Thursday\u2019s 0\u20130 draw; Slot said the team\u2019s energy levels have been eroded by a relentless schedule and a shallow pool of available options.<\/p>\n
Curtis Jones was also substituted, a decision Slot linked to the cumulative effect of playing consecutive full matches. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot to ask for the players who were fit,\u201d Slot told ALL RED Video in the wake of Thursday\u2019s 0\u20130 draw. \u201cAs you could see today, four players with hardly any playing minutes in the Premier League were on the bench. Florian only trained once this week because two days after the game [against Wolves ], he felt his hamstring still a bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try to be as careful as you can without ruining your chances of winning the game as much as you can with the schedule coming up because missing out on another one would be an even bigger problem if that\u2019s going to take five, six or seven weeks or longer.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is little immediate respite. The defending Premier League champions travel to Fulham on Sunday and then face Arsenal on Jan. 8, a run that Slot warned will come with minimal reinforcements available.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe good thing was Cody Gakpo was back after an injury so I could still make a few substitutions still,\u201d Slot noted before quickly adding, \u201cand these players have to do it in the upcoming weeks or months because apart from Joe Gomez, I don\u2019t see a player coming back soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot listed a number of absences shaping his selection choices. Alexander Isak is expected to be sidelined with a broken leg until the end of February at the earliest. Giovanni Leoni is out long-term with an ACL tear, and Mohamed Salah is set to miss the Arsenal match because of Egypt\u2019s advancement at the Africa Cup of Nations. Slot hinted Joe Gomez could soon be available, leaving fringe figures such as Wataru Endo to offer depth. When the dependable Japan international was signed in 2023, J\u00fcrgen Klopp told him: \u201cWe really need you. We have a really good team. Ready to work, but very offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot said Wirtz was withdrawn for load management as Liverpool struggle to rotate with injuries too<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5625,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1211,195,299],"class_list":["post-5626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-africa-cup-of-nations","tag-alexander-isak","tag-arne-slot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626","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=5626"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5626\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}