Arne Slot has spoken out strongly about the challenges he’s faced in terms of managing players’ minutes at Liverpool this season.
A difficult campaign for the Reds hasn’t been helped by numerous first-team players succumbing to injury. Giovanni Leoni, Conor Bradley and Alexander Isak are all currently sidelined with long-term issues, with the latter two already ruled out for the rest of 2025/26.
Our defensive options will be stretched even further when we play Qarabag on Wednesday night, with the head coach today confirming that Joe Gomez and Ibrahima Konate won’t be involved due to injury and compassionate leave respectively.
Slot asks for understanding regarding squad rotation
Ahead of Liverpool’s eighth match in 28 days – with one more to follow against Newcastle on Saturday to close out January – Slot asked for the Reds’ critics to be more understanding of his need to manage players’ workloads with so many injuries affecting his squad.
The 47-year-old told the press this afternoon (via Liverpool Echo): “It’s not a worry that I have a small squad, but it’s a difficulty. It’s almost constantly the same players who have to play. When we lose, we get scrutinised and get criticism we deserve. They are constantly available apart from the three [long-term injuries].”
Slot also admitted to defying advice from medical staff about players’ minutes, citing one instance where his stance was ultimately vindicated.
He said: “It’s very hard to balance that, especially with the problems with long-term injuries… There has been a situation where a player was on the pitch and was involved in a goal at the end of the game when really he should have been taken off.
“If people knew the struggles we were coping with, they’d be more understandable of the decisions we have to make.”
Liverpool should still be doing better despite unrelenting schedule
Liverpool’s fixture calendar has been relentless throughout January, and Slot certainly hasn’t been helped by having to cope with so many injuries, especially in defence – Wataru Endo is set to deputise as an emergency centre-back against Qarabag on Wednesday night.
Nevertheless, the Dutchman would probably be getting far more sympathy from outside the club if his team’s results weren’t so underwhelming this season. Even when taking all the absences into account, the Reds have had strong enough line-ups to be doing a whole lot better than they are.
Aside from the back four, there may be rotation elsewhere for tomorrow’s match with one eye on the Newcastle game on Saturday, where LFC’s need for a win is more pressing due to their ailing Premier League form.
Slot openly admitted that his decisions to restrict Hugo Ekitike to a substitute role and withdraw Jeremie Frimpong after an hour against Bournemouth were both with minute management in mind, given the lack of respective positional alternatives due to the injuries to Isak and Bradley.
We must remember that footballers aren’t robots and will naturally accumulate fatigue if they’re playing 90-minute matches at an incredibly high intensity two to three times a week.
That said, any rhetoric about tiredness or injuries would ring hollow if Liverpool fail to beat Qarabag on Wednesday – and the head coach knows it.
Go away Slot , you left our best striker on the bench reason oh you wanted to loose maybe your suplementing your wages . Joke of a manager .
Someone get a grip of LFC and sack this clown. We had a full squad at the start of the season and we were hopeless. The players are not playing for him, no other premier league team would take him, he doesn’t have the personality to motivate the team. All he did was make us more defensive last year by accidentally playing Gravenberch deeper. Salah was scoring in every game and everyone else was awful, that’s why we won the league. Under klopp no team would have battered us in 2 games like PSG did, that’s all you need to know
Yougo robbo stay. Take hughes with you
If managing minutes is necessary then play them at the start and subsitute them later, surely we have enough talent in the U21s to fill the bench places. Players who want to show what they can do in order to be a member of the first team squad, instead of players who think their place is safe.
We have a chance to buy players in the summer. We did not buy the necessary players to complete 1st team and 2nd team. The chance is home and now he wants to blame Hughes?
As the summer 2025 transfer window opened, we all knew the defence needed serious investment – Trent gone, Robbo in need of quality back-up, Konate inconsistent, VVD in need of quality back-up, Joe in need of a new body, Quansah and Tsimikas gone.
By Sept 1st in terms of the first team we’d bought Kerkez and Leoni. Van Dijk has played nearly every game – thank goodness he hasn’t got injured.
Every great team is built on a quality defence – whose fault is it that ours isn’t? Slot or Hughes or both? For me, the answer to that question determines Slot’s future with Liverpool.