Arne Slot has explained why Liverpool refused Curtis Jones permission to leave for Inter Milan in the January window, citing a season-long injury problem that has depleted squad options.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s played a lot of minutes, not all of them, but I think he\u2019s also unlucky in the sense that it\u2019s probably the only line where we haven\u2019t had injuries,\u201d Slot told his latest news conference. \u201cBut still he\u2019s played a lot of minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s of course why we kept him as well, because we have in that line a lot of players, but we need these midfielders in different positions as well. And the moment you start to need midfielders in different positions then the line in midfield gets smaller and smaller.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo yeah, of course we kept him. His situation hasn\u2019t changed, to us. He\u2019s one of the 16 outfield players we have available for the long term now, and also this moment in time with two really young players in Trey [Nyoni] and Rio [Ngumoha] included.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it would be a bit strange if we would let anyone go if you only have 16 available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s comments confirm that Jones, now 25, was prevented from moving because Liverpool judged the squad too fragile to lose depth. The midfielder has made 30 appearances in all competitions this season but is largely a rotational option under Slot, starting just 10 Premier League matches.<\/p>\n
Appearances (Starts): Premier League 21 (10), Champions League 6 (4), FA Cup 1 (1), Carabao Cup 1 (1), Community Shield 1 (1).<\/p>\n
With Jones entering the final 18 months of his contract, the question of his future is clear: accept a secondary role or seek regular minutes elsewhere. Slot and the club, however, were balancing Jones\u2019s personal interests against Liverpool\u2019s immediate need to protect squad numbers. Slot pointed to Alexis Mac Allister and Ryan Gravenberch as the preferred central pair who have avoided major injury issues, underlining why Jones remains valuable as first reserve in midfield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says Liverpool’s injury crisis meant Curtis Jones could not join Inter Milan in January period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6572,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,1163],"tags":[299,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-6573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-transfers","tag-arne-slot","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6573","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=6573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6573\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}