Slot gives fitness updates on two Liverpool stars | OneFootball

Arne Slot gave injury updates on Alexander Isak and Giovanni Leoni, as well as updates on how Florian Wirtz has adapted to the Premier League.

Isak suffered a broken leg just before Christmas against Tottenham, while Leoni has been out for longer, since September, when he suffered a torn cruciate ligament injury on his Liverpool debut against Southampton.

Slot gave updates on both of their fitness: “Unfortunately, Giovanni Leoni, we won’t see him this season, and Alex is going to take a long time before we see him again,” he said. “That is all right now, you can do the numbers, how much money that is, and if you combine that with how much we’ve sold, that’s maybe an interesting story to make.”

The Dutchman explained that Liverpool’s struggles have been compounded by injuries to their new signings as they have tried to adapt to their new club.

“I think that’s not only for the new players we brought in,” he said. “I think if you bring in a lot of new players and a lot of players are gone, then usually, at least if I do my job a bit well, you see them playing better football after they’ve been together a bit longer. 

“There’s more training time, there’s more playing time together, then usually they play better. I think you could see this last season, because that team was, the year before, all the same with Jürgen, and last season, especially the first half of the season, I think we played some very good football. 

“That’s helpful if players are longer together, I think history has shown many times, the longer players play together, the bigger chance you have of winning something.”

With a goal and two assists in his last two Liverpool games, Wirtz has finally seemed to be adapting to the Premier League. Slot spoke about how difficult it is to make the move from Germany to England.

“I can only answer from my experience, being an old man, or at least much older than him,” he explained. “It was also my first experience going abroad. It’s different, your life is a bit upside down, and that for a manager is probably not the biggest problem because I don’t have to perform on the pitch, but I could fully understand that some individuals, some players need a bit of time to adapt off the pitch as well, but the biggest adaptation is if you come from abroad, this league, how intense it is. 

“Because again, today, I think even when we play once a week, you could see that Hugo had a cramp after 70, 75 minutes, and I didn’t take Florian out because he played bad, I took him out because he was hardly able to keep on running anymore. 

“That’s also a bit of the situation we’re in, but that also tells you about the new players we’ve brought in, how big of a step it is to adjust to these intensity levels.”