Liverpool manager Arne Slott reacts after defeat to Crystal Palace (Photo by Molly Darlington/Getty Images)
Liverpool manager Arne Slott admitted his side have not been as injury-prone as last season.
Slott led the Reds to an impressive Premier League title in his first year in charge, but his second year at Anfield got off to an even more difficult start.
Liverpool may appear to have had a bit of luck last season, when both Arsenal and Manchester City suffered a decline in performance, partly due to injuries to key players themselves.
Liverpool, in contrast, managed to keep their key names around for almost the entire campaign, but are now down on their luck in that department.
Arne Slott talks about Liverpool’s injury misfortune
Slott has tried to explain away Liverpool’s poor results and performances this season, but insists he is not trying to make excuses for the team.
See below. The Dutch tactician claims that it is simply difficult to put pressure on other players to play more often, even if it’s just a game every few days, at the same time as more players are sidelined through injury, limiting options…
“If we can talk about the issues…not all of them had a proper preseason, not all of them had injuries during the season,” Slott said.
“So if you get three or four injured, you’re back to 16 players. I’m a strong believer that 20-21 players is enough, but we have to keep them healthy like we did last season.”
“It was more difficult than last season to have everything available. Maybe we were more lucky last season, maybe we’re more unlucky now.”
“Again, before people say this again, there are no excuses for our result, but we had to play a lot of away games with just two days of rest in between.”
Can Liverpool bounce back?
Liverpool will no doubt be hoping that having everyone back will improve their chances of picking up points, but do their problems run deeper than that?
The Merseyside giants were already conceding a lot of goals before Alisson Becker was injured, while summer signings Jeremy Frimpong and Milos Kerkes simply haven’t performed well enough since arriving.
Florian Wirths also had a full pre-season and there were no concerns about his fitness, but so far he has struggled to justify his price tag.