Arne Slot has explained why he left Mohamed Salah and Alexander Isak on the bench for Liverpool’s Champions League meeting with Galatasaray in Istanbul on Tuesday night.
The Liverpool boss made four changes from the side that lost 2-1 to Crystal Palace at the weekend. Salah, Isak, Alexis Mac Allister and Conor Bradley all dropped to the bench, with Jeremie Frimpong, Hugo Ekitike, Curtis Jones and Cody Gakpo coming into the starting XI.
Arne Slot confirmed before kick-off that Frimpong would start on the right wing in place of Salah, with Dominik Szoboszlai shifted to right-back.
“Jeremie is not playing as a right full-back, he is playing on the right wing,” Slot told Amazon Prime. “We have many games to play. In a few days there is another big game coming up.
“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 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 Mo is on the bench.
“It is an example maybe of a luxury, of having other options.”
Slot also revealed that both Isak and Mac Allister are still being managed carefully after disrupted pre-seasons.
“It takes a bit of time for Isak,” he added. “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.
“Up front we go in and out with Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitike. 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 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 extra ingredients why we sometimes have to rotate a bit. And sometimes it’s also because we think we have players who can play games this.”
