Liverpool boss Arne Slot made four changes to his starting XI for the Champions League clash with Galatasaray, with Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak both missing out
Arne Slot has shed light on his decision to relegate Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak to the bench for Liverpool’s Champions League match against Galatasaray.
The Dutch manager made four alterations to his starting line-up for the trip to Turkey following Saturday’s defeat to Crystal Palace.
Salah, along with Isak, Alexis Mac Allister and Conor Bradley, were demoted to the substitutes’ bench, making way for Jeremie Frimpong, Hugo Ekitike, Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo to start.
Before the match, Slot revealed that Frimpong would fill in on the right wing in Salah’s absence, rather than playing in his usual full-back position, with Dominik Szoboszlai taking up the right-back role.
“Jeremie is not playing as a right full-back, he is playing on the right-wing,” he explained to Amazon Prime. “We have many games to play. In a few days there is another big game coming up,” reports the Liverpool Echo.
“We have to utilise our squad. Utilising doesn’t always mean from the start. Players can come in as well. Many of our games, players have impacted the game coming off from the bench.
“They were talking about the last time, Mo scored three coming off the bench against Rangers. And I know who the manager of Rangers was back then! That is my current assistant, Gio (Van Bronckhorst). But that is not the reason (why Salah is on the bench).
“It is example maybe of a luxury, of having other options.” Slot has also confirmed that Liverpool are taking a cautious approach with both Isak and Mac Allister, following their disrupted pre-seasons. He explained the decision to bench the duo in Istanbul.
“It takes a bit of time (for Isak),” he said. “He plays an hour, half an hour. Everyone who plays football knows the more you play together, the better it goes.
“Normally very good players need less time to adapt. If you look at our full-back position, both of them are new.
“We’re rotating between Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike upfront. And in midfield, we’ve made some changes because Mac Allister had a very poor pre-season. Poor in terms of missing out on a lot of training time.
“If you then play every three days, you can’t expect from Alexander or Mac Allister to be available for 90 minutes every three days.
“Alexander Isak didn’t train in pre-season. Mac Allister missed a lot of pre-season. Conor Bradley missed a lot of pre-season. Milos Kerkez is not used, at Bournemouth, to playing three times a week.
“These are all additional reasons why we sometimes have to rotate a bit. And sometimes it’s also because we think we have players who can play games like this.”
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