Curtis Jones will be fit to play in the Merseyside derby away at Everton on Wednesday night. The Liverpool midfielder was left as an unused substitute for the Reds’ shock FA Cup exit to Plymouth Argyle, having only recently returned from an MCL injury.

Arne Slot confirmed that he had originally intended to start the midfielder against the Pilgrims, only for the England international to withdraw from starting contention on the morning of the game.

Jones had made a telling impact off the bench for Liverpool’s 2-0 victory away at AFC Bournemouth at the start of the month when making his initial return, before completing 72 minutes in the Reds’ 4-0 thrashing of Tottenham Hotspur last week.

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But despite being left unused against Plymouth, Slot has allayed any injury concerns about the 24-year-old - who initially sat out meetings with Ipswich Town and PSV Eindhoven after being forced off at half-time against Lille last month.

“Yeah, (he will be available on Wednesday),” Slot confirmed. “He was out for 10, 12 days and he played a game at home against Tottenham. His recovery took a bit longer than expected.”

Slot made 10 changes to his side against Plymouth, with only Caoimhin Kelleher keeping his place from the midweek victory over Tottenham. Meanwhile, including the injured Trent Alexander-Arnold, the Reds head coach left 11 senior players at home.

The Dutchman confirmed that he will make wholesale changes again against Everton, before defending his players that had played in the defeat to Plymouth.

“I don’t read that much in England,” he said when asked about the fallout after losing to the Championship strugglers. “I saw some remarks in the Dutch media because I follow all the news, whatever happens over there.

“They called it a…they had some strong words so I assume the English media said similar things. I can only agree with that. I had the same emotions. It was a very, very disappointing result.

“Maybe not the emotion because the players that were on the pitch will be - maybe one or two of them - but the rest will not start. I don’t think the ones who stayed behind have the same emotions of the ones that lost.

“Although of course the ones that stayed behind were very disappointed as well because we are here to compete for every trophy. Now one of them is gone so everybody was disappointed.

“Every time that these players that played the game against Plymouth came in, they’ve done really well but it is not the first time we had a disappointing result when they all played together because PSV Eindhoven was the same.

“There is a big difference coming into a team that has a certain structure and has played so many times together and then one or two players coming in can have a big impact.

“It’s clear if you change so many players that there is not as much structure and cohesion as the ones that played together.

“But still, I assumed and that’s the wrong interpretation that I made, that these players were - without having the same cohesion - good enough to win from Plymouth.

“My idea was to start with Curtis Jones and have Joe Gomez longer available and all of a sudden they weren’t and Darwin was not able to play more than half an hour.

“We dropped a bit maybe too much in quality compared to what we could have brought on the pitch. It still should have been more than enough to win against Plymouth but it wasn’t.”