There is no question that Liverpool have underperformed this season, with a lot of that falling on the manager’s head. There is quite a large section of the supporter base who would give the ‘head coach’ his marching orders this summer, whilst a smaller number would have done so already.
The fact that the Dutchman won a title and had to guide his players through the tragic loss of Diogo Jota in the summer is not mitigation enough in their eyes. One of the biggest issues that Arne Slot has faced throughout the campaign is the number of injuries that we’ve suffered, with some feeling that it’s developed into a crisis ahead of the visit of Chelsea on Saturday.
Although Liverpool didn’t play well for the majority of the game against Manchester United at Old Trafford last Sunday, the truth of the matter is that a huge chunk of players were missing from the team. We looked rather disjointed, but I’m not sure that should’ve come as a surprise to anyone when you consider that we had to play our third-choice goalkeeper, our second-choice left-back and our fourth-choice right-back, who is also a midfielder by trade.
Add in the fact that we had no recognised forward to call upon and it isn’t hard to see why it is that the players didn’t really seem to know what anyone else on the team was going to do.
Here is a look at the list of players that were absent on Sunday:
When Liverpool trained ahead of the visit of Chelsea for the Premier League clash this weekend, they were without Mohamed Salah, Alisson Becker and Alexander Isak, alongside the longer-term absentees. As if that wasn’t bad enough, Ibrahima Konaté was also missing.
The French centre-back didn’t have his best start to the season, with many believing that that was down to the rumours linking him with a move to Real Madrid. In actuality, it is more likely that the defender was struggling to deal with the illness that his father was going through, coming off the back of the loss of his teammate in the summer, both impacting his mental health.
@kenjivp09 Whats the score gonna be at the weekend? #fyp #football #liverpool #konate #arneslot ♬ Ryuuk – ASLAN PAHARI
We don’t know exactly why Konaté was missing from training, but the fact that he was replaced by Federico Chiesa during the closing stages of the match against United was initially put down to Arne Slot going more attacking for the final stages. Now, the Frenchman’s absence at the AXA Training Centre suggests that he might have been feeling a niggle towards the end of the game and that was why he was taken off. Regardless, there is little question that a lack of availability for him alongside all of Liverpool’s other absentees is a far from ideal position to be in, considering we are still trying to qualify for the Champions League.