‘They showed it against United’ – Arne Slot explains unprecedented Liverpool team selection
Arne Slot hasn’t been afraid to ring the changes with his starting line-up for Liverpool tonight as they seek to arrest a four-match losing streak.
There are five alterations for tonight’s Champions League clash against Eintracht Frankfurt from the XI which began the defeat to Manchester United on Sunday, with summer signings Jeremie Frimpong, Florian Wirtz and Hugo Ekitike all brought into the side.
The latter will start alongside Alexander Isak for the first time in the Reds’ forward line, with Mo Salah dropping to the bench after an unusually barren spell in front of goal.
Until now it’s been a case of one or the other at centre-forward in terms of the French and Swedish strikers, but having briefly been on the pitch together against the Red Devils last weekend, tonight we get a first glimpse of them in the same starting XI.
What has Slot said about Isak and Ekitike starting together?
Speaking before tonight’s match, Slot insisted that Ekitike and Isak can work in tandem with each other, although it might duly require some sacrifice from a couple of Liverpool’s midfielders.
The Dutchman told TNT Sports: “What we need to try today is to create as many chances as the last few weeks, because that is very helpful that we two players who can score. We are hoping and expecting Jeremie Frimpong and Cody Gakpo to create something for these two with Florian Wirtz’s creativity in and around our two No.9s.
“That is looking at how they normally set up and that’s the idea. They [Isak and Ekitike] can play together, they showed it against United, although it was the second half, but it means our midfield needs to be structured a little differently. Where we normally play with one [number] 6, now we need Curtis and Dom to be more defensively-minded than one of the two usually is.”
Isak and Ekitike link-up will be fascinating to see
In the lead-up to tonight’s match, John Aldridge called for Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike to all start together for Liverpool, and the former Reds striker’s wish has duly been granted by Slot.
The latter two only had 10 minutes on the field simultaneously on Sunday, so this’ll be the first time that we get to properly see them in the same team, even though the club parted with around £200m to bring both of them in during the summer transfer window.
It’ll be compelling to see what positions they take up on the pitch – line-up graphics may have one of them on the right in place of Salah, but the head coach’s comments suggests that they’ll play as a conventional strike partnership, thus giving Frimpong the freedom of that flank.
Plenty of pundits have queried how Slot would get each of Wirtz, Isak and Ekitike into the same starting XI, and tonight we’ll finally get our answer.
It’s a big call by the Dutchman to drop Liverpool’s number 11, but hopefully the combination of players he’s selected for the game at Deutsche Bank Park will prove effective enough to earn a long-overdue win for the Reds and fire them back towards the top eight of the Champions League table!
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