Liverpool handed fresh injury and suspension blows ahead of Crystal Palace trip as Arne Slot fumes
Crystal Palace will look to defend their unbeaten start to the season against Liverpool who will be without two key players.
There are just two unbeaten sides left in the Premier League and that number could be down to just one by 5pm on Saturday.
Crystal Palace take on a relentless Liverpool side that are showing a different side to themselves this season with resilience and mental fortitude rather than attacking brilliance blowing teams away. Almost every game this season has seen Arne Slot’s side score a late goal and they were at it again against Southampton, albeit with a vastly understrength side for the Carabao Cup third round.
Liverpool suffer injury blow ahead of Crystal Palace clash
The rest of the league will be hoping that Palace can do them a favour at Selhurst Park as fifth take on first in what is an exciting repeat of the FA Community Shield season opener. Technically, it is the only time that Liverpool have lost this season and Oliver Glasner will have a similar game plan ready, as his opposite number counts the cost of having to play in mid-week.
One player who will be absent for Liverpool beyond this weekend is centre-half Giovanni Leoni who, after a late collision at the side of the Anfield pitch, had to be stretchered off.
"He's down because for him it didn't feel good immediately,” said Slot in his post-match press conference.
"But this is something now we have to assess and normally these things don't happen in five to 10 minutes, you have to wait until tomorrow to see how he comes in and then maybe do an MRI scan to know more.
“Normally the emotions of a player tell you a lot, I saw a player in the Dutch Eredivisie at the weekend who went out completely in tears and it proved to be that he was right (that he had suffered a bad injury), but let's hope for the best."
Slot fumes with Liverpool missing red card striker against Palace
If Slot has sympathy for Leoni, the Dutch boss certainly doesn’t have any for Hugo Ekitike who has given Palace a helping hand by taking his shirt off after scoring a late winner for Liverpool. Already on a booking, a second yellow card was issued and, in one of football’s nuances, instead of being suspended for the next round, the France international misses the next domestic game which is the trip to face the Eagles.
If what Slot said to the media, via Liverpool’s official website, is anything to go by, what has been said behind closed doors might not be for the feint hearted.
The Liverpool boss told reporters: “I told him as well and I said it to numerous media already, if you score in a Champions League final in the 87th minute after outplaying three players and hitting it in the top corner, I can maybe understand that you’re like, ‘This is all about me, what did I do?’ But I am old fashioned, I’m 47 and old maybe.
“I haven’t played at this level but I did score a few goals and if I would have scored a goal like this, I would have turned around and walked up to, in this situation, Federico Chiesa and said, ‘This goal is all about you, this is not about me.’ So, yeah, needless, not smart. You call it stupid. I call it stupid, by the way, as well.”
With Alexander Isak not fully up to speed in terms of match fitness, he will be unlikely to start to games in quick succession which means that Federico Chiesa is likely to lead the line instead. The Italian is a good player, however, he doesn’t offer the physical threat that Ekitike or Isak do in terms of being a target or holding the ball up. Not that Glasner will have any complaints.