Arne Slot rues ‘last thing’ Liverpool need as injury strikes again

Arne Slot has admitted the “last thing” Liverpool need this season is another injury after midfielder Wataru Endo was stretchered off against Sunderland.

Endo — who was already having to fill in for injured players at right-back in midweek — is now expected to be sidelined for “a long time” with a foot problem. His injury is another blow for Slot’s side, which is now extremely stretched ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup fourth round clash against Brighton & Hove Albion.

“The load management is important because the last thing we could use right now is another injury,” Slot said.

“That is always the difficult balance for the manager, including his medical staff, what is the best decision to make every single time. It is also true that a player could get injured if he has to play three games in seven days. But it also happened many times that a player could play three games in seven days.

“So that’s the challenge we are having, but the most important thing is we have to train today, see how the players are doing, listen to how they feel and then make the best possible decision.”

Liverpool beat League One side Barnsley to reach the fourth round of the FA Cup and Slot acknowledged his team need to ensure the small margins work in their favour if they want to progress to the next round of the competition.

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“Margins have been so small for us this season,” he said. “Every single time the other team has a bit of a sniff in the game, all of a sudden they score. [Whereas] we need to put so much in it before we are able to score.

“I didn’t see that much difference in the last 20 minutes [of Wednesday’s 1-0 win at Sunderland] as I saw against City [in Sunday’s 2-1 defeat]. The difference was that the first time they arrived after us scoring it was a goal. Before that we were challenging them in their box to score the second. So the margins are really small.”