Arne Slot has suggested that both Chelsea and Manchester City have a greater squad depth than Liverpool after their defeat to Crystal Palace in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.
Liverpool were dumped out of the competition as Ismaila Sarr’s first-half double, plus a late goal from Yeremy Pino, sealed a deserved win for Palace at Anfield.
Slot made 10 changes to his side following their 3-2 defeat away to Brentford last Saturday, while Virgil van Dijk, Mohamed Salah, Dominik Szoboszlai, Ibrahima Konate and Hugo Ekitike were all rested ahead of Saturday’s Premier League game against Aston Villa.
Speaking after Liverpool’s sixth defeat in seven matches, Slot defended his decision to heavily rotate his team against Palace and claimed City and Chelsea do not suffer the same impact if they make changes to their side.
‘I’m not too sure that it is right what you are saying because when we played West Ham [in last season’s Carabao Cup third round] I don’t think [Mohamed] Salah was on the bench. But maybe I’m wrong, you are right, but I don’t think he was,’ Slot said.
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‘So a year ago, I did, we did, the same but maybe the line-up felt differently. I said this also for the television that before I went out I saw [Manchester] City’s line-up and I don’t think they had one starter from the weekend, but it felt as if you looked at their line-up that they played with 11 starters.
‘Maybe it also gives a little bit of insight that everybody has always said how big of a squad we are having.
‘When we played Chelsea, I said they are missing eight but they can still bring Estevao in.
‘We are only missing four players at the moment and already we needed to start with four players under the age of 19 and after I made two substitutions we were on six.’
Slot also insisted he was unwilling to take a ‘risk’ on players such as Conor Bradley and believes he would have been criticised if Van Dijk or Konate had suffered an injury during the game if they were selected.
‘Last time we played Southampton here in the League Cup, Giovanni Leoni got injured, and we don’t have such a big squad as people might tell, because there was so much focus on the amount of money we spent [in the summer],’ said Slot.
‘People all of a sudden think we have 25 players available but we mainly have 20 players then we have four injuries.
‘I only have one right full-back, Conor Bradley, as an example, and every time I had to play him twice in three days or three times in seven days [last season], it led to him… that I had to take him off with a hamstring injury or something else.
‘Are you willing to take that risk with such a big week coming up? Last time I played a player that wasn’t fully prepared, we thought he was prepared but it was the first time, Alexander Isak, he got injured.
‘Last time we played Southampton, Leoni was injured and it was a red card for Hugo Ekitike. Those are the things we can’t use with a big week coming up.
‘But there’s always a choice. What if I had played Virgil [van Dijk] and Ibou [Konate], for example, if one of them got injured people would have said, ‘what a stupid choice’.
‘And also with them [first-team players] it was very difficult for us, for our starters to beat Palace because it’s not the first time we lose against them.’
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