Nervous chatter after Liverpool press conference change as Arne Slot pinpoints truth about injuries

As Arne Slot held court once again inside the media room at the AXA Training Centre on Thursday afternoon, a loud bang could be heard through the walls. The Liverpool boss, ever the professional, carried on regardless.

It later transpired that what had threatened to drown out the Dutchman was the sound of the cut-out of the European Cup, one of many trophies to adorn the Champions Wall inside the facility, crashing to the ground after being knocked from its perch.

Given the manner in which Liverpool had dismantled Real Madrid less than 24 hours earlier, it was more accident than representative of the current state of the team.

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While there had been some nervous chatter about the regular Friday press conference being moved to a Thursday - the last time that happened, the week ended with Jurgen Klopp announcing his intention to quit at the end of the season - for Slot it was business as usual.

Albeit particularly important business, with the Reds following the visit of the European champions with a game at home to the Premier League holders on Sunday afternoon aiming for the victory that would move them 11 points ahead of Manchester City after only 13 games.

City are on their worst run of form during Pep Guardiola's reign, with even the 3-3 Champions League draw against Feyenoord on Tuesday night that ended a sequence of five successive defeats tempered by the fact City surrendered a three-goal lead in the closing stages.

It will be the first time Slot pits his wits against the Catalan. And the Liverpool boss doesn't believe life will be any less difficult due to City's recent travails.

"I don’t think anyone in the last eight or nine years or maybe even longer would have said the word 'easy' comes to mind for City home or away," he says. "No, not at all. I know everyone is looking at their results but if you analyse it, against Brighton they were 1-0 up and could have scored two or three and got beaten, against Tottenham after 20 minutes they could have been two or three up but weren't, and against Feyenoord they were 3-0 up and completely dominating.

"They are still a very, very, very good team and one of the reasons I think Pep is the best manager in the world is he always comes up with solutions for his problems. His problem now might be Rodri is out but we all know he will come up with a solution and then their form will come again. Hopefully after Sunday."

Asked if Guardiola could change system at the weekend, Slot added: "I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes up with another brilliant idea.

"He was the one who started playing inverted full-backs, then he was the one starting to play the centre-back as the number six. It won't be a surprise if he comes up with something nobody has thought about before to make his team even stronger.

"That is one of the reasons he inspired so many managers, when he came up with something we thought it was crazy then it worked, so we all tried to do the same as it was a brilliant idea. Many things have been done in football now, but if there is anyone in this managerial world that can come up with something new, it's definitely him."

City have been hampered by the absence of a lengthy list of players through injury, most notably Ballon d'Or winner Rodri who is unlikely to play again this season.

What has largely gone under the radar, though, is the fact Liverpool have been without Alisson Becker, Diogo Jota and Federico Chiesa for more than a month, with Kostas Tsimikas now also out and doubts over Conor Bradley and Ibrahima Konate after the duo picked up injuries during the win over Real Madrid.

"I think in general people only talk about injuries if the results are not there, so it is a good thing if people have not talked about our injuries because then we have got our results in," added Slot.

"But the moment you start to lose, it is about kick-off time on a Saturday afternoon or about injuries, we always come up with certain ideas about why we didn't win. But nine or 10 times it's about the quality of the other team or the gameplan.

"But we do have some very important players injured but if the replacements do so well it is normal people don’t talk about that. But it is true, missing Alisson a starter for so long, missing Diogo Jota, missing Trent for the last two games, those are players who have had impact a lot in the last few years. But it's a good thing we don't talk about it."