Conor Bradley will start on Sunday
Arne Slot spoke to the press ahead of Sunday’s marquee (albeit meaningless) fixture between the Champions and the side currently in second place, and the Liverpool head coach spoke at length on Trent Alexander-Arnold’s decision to leave the club:
I think, like everybody who likes Liverpool and who is a fan of Liverpool, we are disappointed for him leaving because not only [is] a good human being leaving the club but a very, very, very good full-back is leaving us as well. I also worked at clubs, like AZ Alkmaar and Feyenoord, where every season a very good or multiple very good players have left the club. So, I’m a bit more used to it maybe that players [are] leaving the club. The experience I have – and, by the way, this club as well – [is] that if a very good player is leaving, the next very good player will step up, and that’s probably what’s going to happen now again as well.
He professed to have no concerns about supporter reactions to the player, responding in the negative when asked if he was worried:
No, that people have an opinion about us – if it’s Trent or me, or someone else who works in this industry – that’s not new for anyone. Probably it’s a bit more for him now than he’s used to and maybe a bit more negative than he’s used to. But I don’t follow all of this. I’m not here to tell the fans how they should react. I will see Trent in a bit and the boys had a few days off as well, so I will wait and see how he feels about him announcing that he’s going to leave the club. I did speak to him on WhatsApp. But let’s wait and see.
But I am not here to tell the fans how they should react. I think we are all disappointed but Trent is the first one also who said that he would prefer us, as a team and as a club, not to be too much distracted by this announcement. So, I’m hoping that all the energy on Sunday goes to the players and to the support of our fans, and as less as possible to Trent – unless it’s positive, then they can do whatever they want.
Slot spoke in short about his options and what the departure will mean for the market, with Joe Gomez and Jarell Quansah being largely center backs who can cover out right:
And we have got Conor Bradley and I have played Curtis Jones over there, so four players that can play that position. With, I agree with you, one of them that [it] is the ideal position and Joe Gomez can play there really well, in my opinion, but maybe his favourite position would be centre-back, I agree with you. And for Jarell it’s the same. I think it would be a surprise to you if I would tell you now, yes, we are looking at this or we’re looking at that – we don’t talk about contracts over here [in the press room], we don’t talk about the positions or if we want to improve the team in certain areas.
That’s the most difficult thing for a club like Liverpool, if you just won the league and we were so competitive against Paris Saint-Germain [in the Champions League] because they needed penalties to knock us out, then it’s not easy to find better players than we already have. And if they are there, they still need to be affordable and they need to want to come to our club. That last thing is mostly not the problem, by the way, but sometimes transfer fees are.
Slot also commented on how well he rates Conor Bradley:
Yeah, let’s not compare him with Trent. Now already they are also two different types, in my opinion. With Conor, I think we all see the potential. But last week I walked onto the pitch together with him and I looked around because for me it was the first time [at Stamford Bridge] and I was very surprised to hear from him that he had a comment about the stadium as well. I looked at him like, ‘Didn’t you know yet?’ And he said, ‘No, it’s the first time that I’m here as well.’ That was a bit of a surprise to me because, for me, he’s already further in his development than being for the first time in an away game like Chelsea.
Very talented player, Conor. Unfortunately, [he] hasn’t been fit throughout the whole season and to become a very good player you have to be available every single week as well, and that’s the first step he has to make for next season. But we have a lot of confidence in Conor as a very good full-back for Liverpool, and that’s already what he’s shown, I think, in the past two seasons.