Liverpool manager Arne Slot has downplayed the significance of their upcoming Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven, stating that the result “has no importance” for the team.
This comes after Slot decided to leave several key players, including Alisson, Ibrahima Konate, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, Luis Diaz, Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Virgil van Dijk, out of the 21-player squad for the match.
With Liverpool already guaranteed to finish in either first or second place in the league phase, having won all seven matches, Slot is using this opportunity to rest his regular starters and give them a chance to regain their freshness.
“All the ones that are left behind could have played tomorrow, but for the long term, if you look back at our season, if there was a moment for them to get some freshness back, we have always done that,” Slot explained.
The Liverpool boss also expressed his understanding of the new Champions League format, stating that he is now “100 per cent sure” that the team’s position in the table will not affect their future opponents. “So this is a game for us – because we are now No 1 or No 2, we cannot drop to No 3 – that has no importance of result coming to the league table,” he said.
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Despite the lack of importance, Slot emphasized that the team will still strive to win the match, citing the wisdom of a “very wise man” who once told him that “I have never seen anything good coming from losing a football game.” Joe Gomez, Curtis Jones, and Diogo Jota are also not part of the squad, with the latter two still recovering from injuries.
