Arne Slot made a bold selection for Liverpool\u2019s match with Tottenham Hotspur, omitting Mohamed Salah and placing Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 and Ibrahima Konat\u00e9 on the bench. The decision represented five changes from the side that lost in the Champions League to Galatasaray and signalled a shift in approach for a crucial domestic fixture.<\/p>\n
Slot had earlier removed Salah from the squad for the Champions League trip to Inter Milan before talks led to the forward\u2019s return. Since coming back from the Africa Cup of Nations with Egypt, Salah had started all 12 of Liverpool\u2019s matches. Sunday marked the first time he did not begin.<\/p>\n
Starting XI (4-2-3-1: Alisson; Dominik Szoboszlai, Joe Gomez, Virgil van Dijk, Andy Robertson; Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister; Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz, Rio Ngumoha; Cody Gakpo.<\/p>\n
Slot\u2019s selection reflected recent concerns about Salah\u2019s form. The 33-year-old produced one of his poorest displays in Istanbul, taking just one touch inside Galatasaray\u2019s penalty box during 60 minutes and failing to register a shot. He had also been held goalless against Nottingham Forest as Liverpool struggled to establish an attacking rhythm. Slot\u2019s choice made space for Rio Ngumoha, whose energetic contributions from the bench and subsequent minutes have drawn attention.<\/p>\n
Ngumoha impressed after a lively cameo against Nottingham Forest and was introduced as a starter in the FA Cup tie at Wolverhampton Wanderers the previous week. He watched the Champions League defeat to Galatasaray from the bench before earning his first Premier League start here. Slot framed the selection as the natural next step, saying: \u201cRio is a player who could start for us. He\u2019s been coming in for longer spells. He\u2019s definitely an option to start one of the three games in the coming week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Explaining the timing, Slot told Sky Sports: \u201cWhy now? He started training this season and he\u2019s improving, his game time has gone up and the next step is starting.\u201d The manager also kept Virgil van Dijk at the heart of his plans, playing him regularly, while Liverpool have had to manage the absence of Alexander Isak and rotate their options up front when Ekitik\u00e9 is unavailable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arne Slot opted for Rio Ngumoha and a reshuffled XI, leaving Mohamed Salah and Hugo Ekitik\u00e9 on bench<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8639,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,172,187],"tags":[299,1305,1304],"class_list":["post-8640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liverpool","category-epl","category-tottenham-hotspur","tag-arne-slot","tag-bench-selection","tag-benching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8640","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=8640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}