Slot is dealing with a few injury issuesplaceholder image
Slot is dealing with a few injury issues | Getty Images
Liverpool are dealing with an injury crisis of sorts ahead of their date with Crystal Palace.
Liverpool are dealing with injuries aplenty as they prepare to face Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. The Reds have been on an awful run, losing five of their last six games in a run that was actually started by Palace, who beat them with a last-minute winner at Selhurst Park.
Since then, Liverpool have continued their poor form aside from one win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the Champions League. The run has seen the defending Premier League champions drop to seventh in the Premier League, even below Manchester United.
Liverpool’s latest defeat came against Brentford in West London over the weekend, and the Merseyside club now face a quick turnaround as they prepare to take on Palace at Anfield on Wednesday night in the cup.
Ahead of that game, Liverpool have a fresh injury concern in Curtis Jones, who has picked up an issue. Slot said after the Brentford game: “Curtis, we have to wait and see. He asked to be taken off but he walked off instead of needing treatment. It’s a lot of games and there’s another one in four days.”
Meanwhile, Ryan Gravenberch missed the weekend’s clash with an ankle issue, and Alexander Isak also missed out with a groin injury. Alisson Becker and Jeremie Frimpong also remain out with hamstring issues, thought the former is working on a return in the near future. Giovanni Leoni is out for the season with an ACL issue.
Isak, Gravenberch and Jones as the only players of that six who are said to have a chance in facing Palace, with Slot having said before the Brentford game: "Jeremie's not in a good place. What I mean by that he is definitely not going to play today, tomorrow or next week. Hamstring injury so that's going to take a while.
"Alex, not too bad, but a question mark for the weekend, so let’s see where he is. He didn't travel with us (to Frankfurt), so today we are in again. Yesterday we were in as well but we had a day to travel. Let's see where he is today."
Slot disappointed with Liverpool
Speaking after the Brentford defeat, an unhappy Slot said: “Like you said, disappointing, again. You are always hoping if you win a game of football during the week, although it is only two days' rest when you come over here, of course you are hoping for a better result, but I was also hoping and expecting a better performance, because the performance was far from what we are used to. Even if we are losing, our performances have been better than tonight.”
He added when asked if he was the most disappointed he has been since his arrival: “Yes, I think it's up there in my time here in terms of losing a game of football because normally when we are 2-1, 3-1 or 1-0 down... by the way, after we went 1-0 down, that was the only 20 or 25 minutes I really liked from our game today. Unfortunately, we had a great moment with Florian that didn't lead to a goal because you need to then have a little bit of luck and those moments can bring you back into the game and can give us the energy. But, after 30 minutes, I think they took the game again with long throw-ins, set-pieces and other moments where they were just really good. Again, please don't focus on what I've just said because they did many things well.
“Then, I think it is a crucial moment when just before they scored the 2-0, there was a moment where Cody dribbled inside the box and they didn't play the ball. I think if you would show both situations - the penalty we conceded and that moment - to every referee in the world, they would tell you maybe both were nothing but if I had to give one of the two then I definitely would give the one to Cody. The bad luck for us was that I don't think the referee was intending to give a penalty for that but he thought he'd give them a free-kick, then the VAR said it was inside so then if you think it's a free-kick then it's a penalty. That bad luck maybe comes if you play a game of football like we did today.”
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