Diogo Jota injury return date finally revealed by Liverpool boss Arne Slot

Arne Slot said he expects Diogo Jota back shortly after the international break but would not go into detail about the nature of his injury.

Speaking in October, Slot said that Jota was suffering from bruising to his upper body and the Portuguese forward has missed Liverpool's last five matches. Jota will not figure against Aston Villa at Anfield on Saturday night and will not be called up for Portugal's Nations League matches against Poland and Croatia either.

Liverpool head coach Slot was asked about Jota's injury during a press conference on Friday, and said: "We expect him back after the international break. The first weeks after the international break, we expect him back. I always say in Holland, there's privacy [about the nature of the injury] — I don't know what it's like over here — but like I said he will be back one or two weeks after the international break."

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Slot has been forced to improvize in attack without Jota and his experiment playing Luis Diaz as a central striker against Bayer Leverkusen paid off handsomely in midweek, with the Colombian winger scoring a hat-trick.

"When we had Darwin and Diogo available, we always played one of those two," Slot said when asked about the fluidity of his forward line. "At the moment, Diogo is not available, and in my opinion because we played so many games and Darwin didn't play in the first games it was too much for him [to play in every game] and that's why we came up with other ideas.

"To be honest, I liked the most recent idea — I think every Liverpool supporter did — with Lucho scoring three goals, so that's always interesting to see but Lucho is also a very good left winger. At this moment we've got four attackers available for three positions.

"So we could come up with another idea again, but if Diogo comes back, Darwin is back, and we've got two No.9s available again, and at the beginning of the season I always chose one of these two.

"Lucho did really well and even for me it was maybe a bit of a surprise to see how well he did. I expected him to do good, but that he did so well was a surprise."

Slot was not questioned on the recoveries of Alisson, Harvey Elliott and Federico Chiesa, but previously said that he expected the trio to be sidelined until after the international break.