Arne Slot is sweating on the fitness of Florian Wirtz for West Ham on Saturday after Liverpool’s horrible performance in his absence against Nottingham Forest, but the Reds boss is in no position to complain on the back of a tetchy press conference response.
Slot’s focus on keeping players fit at Feyenoord was key to him being appointed as Jurgen Klopp’s successor and proved crucial in Liverpool storming to the Premier League title last term.
According to Premier Injuries, after 1,383 days were lost through injury in Klopp’s last season at Anfield, in 2024/25 that figure dropped to just 764 under Slot. Only Forest (673) lost fewer days through injury absence in the Premier League.
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Liverpool have lost 436 days so far this season, which puts them somewhere in the middle of the pack in the English top flight. The problem hasn’t been the number or length of the injuries – which suggests Slot’s method of reducing intensity in training in comparison to Klopp is still bearing fruit – but the profile of the players suffering problems.
Giovanni Leoni’s ACL tear and niggling problems for Joe Gomez has meant there has been no getting around a high workload for Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate. They dipped into the transfer market to sign Jeremy Jacquet for £60m but agreed he would remain at Rennes for the rest of the season before he ironically suffered a serious injury of his own.
Jeremie Frimpong has already missed 23 games through injury this season as he struggles to adapt to the rigours of the Premier League and Conor Bradley is out for at least the rest of the campaign at least as he undergoes knee surgery, which has forced Slot into fielding players out of position at right-back to cover.
Dominik Szoboszlai – comfortably Liverpool’s best player this season – has deputised in that position for much of the campaign. His absence in midfield after Wirtz picked up an injury in the warm up against Nottingham Forest on Sunday was keenly felt in the opening stages. And although the Reds improved when the Hungarian swapped with Curtis Jones in a bid to get more of a grip on things, the rhythm of the game had already been established and Liverpool continued to struggle and were very fortunate to end the game with three points.
It’s a problem Slot may face again when they welcome West Ham to Anfield on Saturday as he sweats on the fitness of Wirtz.
“He felt his back in the warm-up,” Slot said after the win over Forest. “We don’t think it’s serious. He wasn’t able to be 100% or close enough to it to start.
“After being in this league for six months, he knows no matter how good you are on the ball, you need to be 100%. We hope he’ll be with us next week.”
He will be desperate for his playmaker to return as, after a difficult start to his Premier League career, Wirtz has become the key creative cog for Liverpool. They looked hopelessly short of ideas in his absence at Forest.
But the Liverpool boss is in no position to complain after bristling at the suggestion that luck played a huge role in their title win in his debut season.
“If you think injuries are only a part of luck or bad luck, then we’ve been lucky, but we try to believe in the fact that we try to prevent them from a certain way of working,” Slot told reporters as the Reds closed in on the title in March.
“That we don’t have many injuries, I don’t see that as luck. I see it as, first of all, top professionals – our players do everything to try to stay fit – and, second of all, great facilities and a great staff. You cannot go through a season in the Premier League, Champions League and all these cup competitions without any injuries; it’s more the amount of injuries that you hopefully try to prevent.”
Leg breaks like Alexander Isak’s and serious knee injuries can’t be attributed to overloading and red zones, but the injuries suffered by Wirtz and Frimpong can. And while their absences could be and have been explained away by this being their first Premier League season, if Slot and his Liverpool fitness gurus are such experts in the field, they surely should have seen the problems coming and planned accordingly.
