SLOT REVEALS WHICH LIVERPOOL STAR WAS ‘ACTING TOO SLOW’ IN FRIENDLY AS REDS SWEAT OVER JONES INJURY
Liverpool boss Arne Slot is unsure how serious Curtis Jones’ injury is after he was forced out of the club’s pre-season friendly against Real Betis.
The 23-year-old limped off with a muscle problem 30 minutes into a 1-0 win at the Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh during the early hours of Saturday morning.
Speaking after his first game in charge of Liverpool, Slot said: “I think it’s too early to tell (how bad it is). He maybe could have played on, but I think maybe you could see he was not at 100 per cent.
“In a friendly game, with so many days coming up in our tour, it was best to take him off. Hopefully he can recover from (it) really fast, but we have to wait and see.
“We hope he recovers really fast so we can see him in the next few games.”
Jones was replaced by 17-year-old Trey Nyoni, who had a hand in Dominik Szoboszlai’s 34th-minute winner.
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Slot added: “It’s always a pity if he (Jones) has to go out after 25 minutes, half an hour. And before that, you could see that he was not completely free.
“It was unfortunate because he had two really good weeks during the training sessions, so I looked forward to seeing him in the game, but unfortunately he had to go out.
“The good thing about that was that we brought someone (on) that impressed me in the 45 minutes to an hour he played afterwards.
“That was the positive thing of Curtis going out for Trey, but of course for Curtis it’s a pity that he couldn’t play on.”
Meanwhile, Slot had some feedback for young midfielder Stefan Bajcetic, who came off the bench in the second half.
Bajcetic, 19, struggled with a calf injury last season and only made one appearance in the Premier League.
Slot will want to see a big pre-season from the Spanish midfielder, who will be desperate to pick up match fitness ahead of 2024/25.
He has a long way to go to get back up to scratch though, and the new Liverpool head coach has said he “acted a a bit too slow” at moments in the friendly victory over Real Betis.
“I think you have to take into account with Stefan that he was out for a year, one-and-a-half years almost,” Slot said. “So if a young player is out for that long, you have to give him some time.
“But I saw today already a few good moments from him and also a few moments where he got caught because he acted a bit too slow. But I think that’s normal if you’ve been out for such a long time [and] then you need rhythm, you need game time to grow even further.
“But I think he showed some good moments during the half-hour that he played.”
Liverpool face Arsenal in Philadelphia on Thursday and Manchester United in Columbia, South Carolina next Sunday.
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2024-07-27T09:51:38Z dg43tfdfdgfd