Arne Slot has ruled out Diogo Jota and Harvey Elliott until after the upcoming international break, with the pair joining Alisson Becker on Liverpool’s longer-term injury list.
Elliott has been out since the start of September after suffering a fracture in his foot, while Jota picked up an injury to his rib area against Chelsea earlier this month.
Right-back Conor Bradley has returned to training after recovering from an injury picked up playing for Northern Ireland so is in contention to feature in the Carabao Cup tie against Brighton & Hove Albion, but Slot ruled Federico Chiesa out of the game and did not want to put a timescale on the Italian’s return.
“That’s always difficult to say, because he goes a bit up and down,” said Slot. “Sometimes he is there with us, train a few days and then he goes out for an injury again.
“I don’t want to put days or weeks on it because we just have to make sure he gets in the best possible shape, and I don’t put any pressure on him by coming out with dates.”
Slot went into further detail about the difficulties Chiesa has faced since arriving at Anfield in a £10.7million deal from Juventus this summer, but denied reports that had suggested the Italy international could be loaned out in January.
“That hasn’t gone through my mind at all,” said Slot. “The first and foremost is that he gets fit again, and then we can see where he is. I think there were also reports in Italy – what I meant about him was that he missed pre-season and in pre-season he was on low intensity sessions because he had to train with three or four players apart from the group.
“That is what I said and then going from there to a high intensity league, to a high intensity playing style is difficult in general for every player, but especially if you had a preseason like this.
“So we knew this before, so we knew we had to be really careful and adjust where we could to his individual needs but it hasn’t been perfect yet. We’re trying to find the right way of building him up without overloading him, and that has been difficult until now but I am fully confident that that will happen.”
Selection decisions will be finalised today when Slot assesses the fitness levels of his players during training but it is unlikely he will be in position to make as many changes (nine) as he did for Liverpool’s last Carabao Cup tie due to injuries.
Slot also spoke about Manchester United’s decision to sack Erik ten Hag, a fellow Dutch manager who he knew from his time working in the Netherlands, and expects him to bounce back from this setback.
“He’s a Dutch manager so that makes it even harder for me, for us, as Dutch people,” said Slot. “Always your first thoughts are with the person. We are all in this job, so we know that it can happen but if it happens, especially because I know him a little bit and I know how much work he puts into it then to get this news for him is of course a pity.
“We also know, especially us from Holland, know how well he did at Ajax and won two trophies over here so we will see him, I think, in the near future, somewhere at a big club again. At this moment, it’s, for him and his family, it’s of course, it’s a pity.”
(Top photo: Paul Ellis/AFP via Getty Images)
