Arne Slot doesn’t trust ‘four or five’ Liverpool players in brutal post-Newcastle assessment | OneFootball

Jamie Carragher has questioned Arne Slot’s decision to not rest Liverpool players in a Premier League clash with Southampton.

The Reds survived an initial scare after Will Smallbone scored in extra-time in the first-half to hand the Saints a half-time lead.

Goals from Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah secured a 3-1 comeback win for the hosts at Anfield to ensure, at the time, a 16-point cushion against second-placed Arsenal.

The refusal to rest a number of key players ahead of the Champions League return leg against PSG, however, may very well have proven costly.

Liverpool players’ legs were blown

(Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images)

One can overlook a 1-0 home defeat to PSG in the second leg of our round of 16 contest; to lose to the better side overall is understandable.

However, the influence of Slot’s Southampton selection calls clearly, as Carragher rightly pointed out, reverberated beyond our European tie.

“I don’t think he’s got any time for four or five of those players in that squad – he’ll refuse to play them,” the former Liverpool centre-half spoke on The Overlap.

“The fact he didn’t change players at home to Southampton, in between the PSG games… Southampton are arguably one of the worst, if not the worst, teams we’ve ever seen in the Premier League, and he still didn’t trust his squad!

“I can accept that this season – because it’s not really his squad, its been passed to him – but I think next season (and I’m sure they’ll bring players in) he’ll have to trust his squad more.

“You have to go further in the Champions League [and] you can’t accept a performance like that against Newcastle.

“I’m giving the lads the benefit of the doubt that they’ve run out of steam, but you can’t accept Liverpool playing like that in a cup final.”

With the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Mo Salah, Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister having now all played in excess of 3,000 minutes in 2024/25, it’s difficult to understand the ardent refusal to rely on the squad.

Paul Scholes was in agreement with his Sky colleague on this front: “I think the big mistake is that Southampton game. He could have changed 11 players, the result didn’t really matter, you’re 12 points clear, you probably still would have won.

“Giving rest to the players was big and it’s show now, hasn’t it?

“You can’t underestimate how it’s affected you on Tuesday night against PSG, going out of that, it just deflates everything.”

Arne Slot has been clear on the standard

To be fair to Slot, our recruitment team has barely tweaked the squad since his arrival this summer.

Federico Chiesa, signed for a pittance at £10m, could hardly be considered a game-changing signing, whilst Giorgi Mamardashvili isn’t set to switch to Anfield until later this year.

It’s still a brilliant squad that Jurgen Klopp has left his successor with, including some absolutely world-class talent.

But Arne Slot has already made clear, in our view, his intention to ramp up the standards.

“For everyone else it is the best because if you want to play at this club you need to be at his level otherwise you are almost useless because we only need players that are at the top of their game,” the Dutchman was quoted by breakingnews.ie.

Little wonder that Chiesa, Harvey Elliott and Wataru Endo are struggling for minutes if the bar has been set that high!

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