Liverpool head coach Arne Slot said Saturday’s Premier League fixture against Southampton is the first of “three finals” this week but suggested he will make changes to his team ahead of the second leg of their Champions League tie against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday.
The Reds will take a 1-0 lead into the last-16 second leg against the French champions at Anfield thanks to goalkeeper Alisson Becker’s heroics in the Parc des Princes, but Liverpool will face a tight turnaround - with just two full days off either side of the Southampton fixture.
Liverpool hold a 13-point lead at the top of the Premier League and could increase that to 16 with a victory over bottom-side Southampton, who have won just twice this season.
Top-scorer Mohamed Salah, captain Virgil van Dijk and midfielder Ryan Gravenberch have started all 28 of their Premier League games this season but, with Tuesday’s tie with PSG followed by Sunday’s Carabao Cup final against Sunday, Slot was asked whether he could rotate for the visit of Southampton.
He said: “If there was three, four, five days in between the last game and this one I would have probably started the same 11 again, even if there was only two days in between for the next one.
“Since there is only two days in between and we had to fight really hard and it's not the first game after being out for three or four weeks, it’s probably the 50th game in three months - I don't know how many.
“You take that into account but you take the quality from the team you face, you take the form of the players, how fit they are, which players fit best together.”
Salah was visibly frustrated when taken off in the Parc des Princes, with his replacement Harvey Elliott scoring the winner with his first touch. Slot was asked whether the hunger of his senior players such as Salah and Van Dijk makes it harder to rotate them.
“He had a completely normal reaction but not only the ones like Mo and Virgil and the ones that won the league before, all of them showed great character this season and that is also what we need against Southampton,” Slot said.
“They are not playing as a team who is bottom of the league, they take a lot of risk, go man-to-man all over the pitch which is the same as Paris Saint-Germain does and they probably saw how difficult we had it over there with that game plan so I'm expecting that again tomorrow.
“For me the one against Southampton is by far the most important, not only because it's the first one we play but it is a very important one for us.
“If I make the choice to play other players that is because I think that's the biggest chance to win the game tomorrow and not because I want to rest them for the game against PSG.”
