It seems that Mo Salah has joined the ever-growing injury list for Liverpool, and Sunday’s game likely comes a bit too soon for Alisson as well. Speaking to the press, Arne Slot outlined the challenges:
“For us it’s a bonus every player that comes back because now if you add Mo [Salah] to the injury list, it’s getting longer and longer, but that’s been throughout the whole season.
“Ali hasn’t trained with us yet. [He is] very close to training with us, I have to hear today from the medical staff if he is able to train today or either tomorrow or otherwise the start of next week.
“He is very close but of course, also we don’t want to take any risks, because that’s never what you do with a player and that’s also not what we do now.”
When pressed to answer whether Alisson would feature should he make it into training ahead of Sunday’s match, Slot suggested he could feature.
“I think there’s a difference between a goalkeeper and a player,” he said. “If a player hasn’t trained for a few weeks, players need to run much more than goalkeepers do.
“I don’t think the issue with a player is when he’s out for four or five weeks that he forgot to know how to play football, it’s usually that the fitness levels are not at the levels to play at this intensity that the Premier League is asking.
“So, there’s a difference between a goalkeeper and an outfield player.”
Miloš Kerkez has been dealing with some “niggles” this week, but is expected to be fit for Sunday.