Florian Wirtz will not face West Ham on Saturday after Arne Slot confirmed the German is unavailable and that he has no clear timeline for a return. The manager spoke frankly at his pre-match press conference and described the situation as a disappointment.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t expect Florian to be available,\u201d Slot told his pre-match press conference. \u201cThat\u2019s a disappointment, of course. Every time my player is not available is a disappointment and also something I did not expect after last week. Sometimes, that\u2019s how things can involve\u2014unfortunately, this time, not in a positive way.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo [idea of a recovery timeline]. At this moment in time, no. Usually, when I say that, I do know that but I don\u2019t want to share it, but now I honestly don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my opinion, it\u2019s already a big accomplishment of him that he stayed fit for such a long time because he had to make a step from where he played towards Liverpool, towards the Premier League, and that he stayed fit all the time tells you a lot about the mentality and the work rate of the player and the performance staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, last week and this week he is not available and that\u2019s indeed a disappointment for him, but definitely also for us because he played really, really, really, really well lately.<\/p>\n
\u201d
\nSlot had little time to react when Wirtz withdrew late from the squad last weekend. Curtis Jones was drafted into the attacking midfield role and produced an underwhelming display in a victory Slot admitted Liverpool did not deserve. With more preparation time ahead of West Ham, Slot can plan differently, but broader injury concerns will restrict his options.<\/p>\n
Dominik Szoboszlai is the preferred alternative in the central attacking midfield position and has been Liverpool\u2019s best player this season by some margin, yet he has been deployed at right back because of a complete loss of options there. Jeremie Frimpong is back from injury and available, but Slot must determine whether the summer signing is fit to start or whether Szoboszlai remains needed at the back.<\/p>\n
Other possibilities include Alexis Mac Allister moving forward from defensive midfield, or the awkward shoehorning of a winger into a No. 10 role. Fans want more minutes for Rio Ngumoha, but the 17-year-old is significantly stronger in wider positions, while none of Mohamed Salah, Cody Gakpo or Federico Chiesa would appear comfortable as a No. 10. Wirtz has contributed five goals and two assists across all competitions in the last two months. Liverpool sit sixth in the Premier League table and cannot afford further inconsistent displays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Slot says Wirtz unavailable for West Ham and offers no timeline; Liverpool must adapt midfield quickly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172],"tags":[1023,299,1047],"class_list":["post-7128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","tag-alexis-mac-allister","tag-arne-slot","tag-champions-league"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7128","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=7128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}