Had Liverpool made more changes to its starting XI against Nottingham Forest, would that have changed the scoreline in the Premier League clash? It’s impossible to know for certain but Arne Slot has tended to prefer consistency so far during his tenure.
It would be fair to say, though, that Liverpool looked sluggish and struggled to find any kind of rhythm or momentum at Anfield. It was one of those games where it feels like a team could play another 90 minutes and still not score.
Given that the next match is now only two days away, with Liverpool facing AC Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday, the rotation question is only going to appear again. But Slot didn’t have many game-changing options to turn to this weekend.
Liverpool could bring in Cody Gakpo and Darwin Nunez in attack and those were the two main players that Slot would have hoped for a positive impact from at Anfield. Neither, though, did anything to suggest that it was a mistake to not start them vs Nottingham Forest. Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota and Mohamed Salah all toiled but the changes didn’t alter anything.
In midfield, Wataru Endo could come in for Ryan Gravenberch and Curtis Jones could replace Dominik Szoboszlai, who was poor at the weekend, or Alexis Mac Allister, who was already fatigued from international duty and picked up a couple of hefty knocks in the first half. With Harvey Elliott missing, though, Slot is slightly hamstrung unless Tyler Morton comes in for a shock appearance.
Jarell Quansah coming into the starting XI is definitely a possibility while Kostas Tsimikas could replace Andy Robertson and Conor Bradley could come in for Trent Alexander-Arnold. Alisson Becker will be in goal.
It is hard to predict exactly what Slot will do as we are yet to see how he manages in weeks where there are multiple matches. Keeping things the same again would allow those players who didn’t perform to put that right straight away, but that seems unlikely when they have only just played.
At least a couple of changes seem inevitable, even though Liverpool still needs to field a strong side. Bringing in Tsimikas, Quansah, Jones and at least one of Gakpo or Nunez would freshen things up while still maintaining the key pillars of the team.
