Our head coach explains the substitutions.
Liverpool FC made it a perfect 7 wins out of 7 games played in the UEFA Champions League, with a 2-1 win over Lille. The scoreline suggests it was a close game, but the Reds largely dominated it and may consider themselves unlucky not to have scored a few more goals. With one last match left in the group stage, Liverpool just need a point to secure top spot ahead of second-place Barcelona, who are three points behind.
Curtis Jones was a half-time substitute, unable to continue after a series of knocks in the first-half. Despite treatment from physio Chris Morgan and club doctor Jonathan Power, he was taken off for Harvey Elliott, who went on to score the winner. Slot explained after the match that the withdrawal of Ryan Gravenberch, who was also brought off at half-time, was pre-planned, as was that of Dominik Szoboszlai, but the latter’s exit was delayed due to Jones’ injury:
“The idea was to take Dom and Ryan off at half-time, but unfortunately, Curtis couldn’t continue, so that’s why Dom stayed a bit longer.”
On Jones’ injury, he said:
“There was a moment in the game that he felt [something], and he said, ‘Let’s play for five more minutes and then see how it is’.
“But he said he had to go out at half-time.”
He also revealed that Conor Bradley’s substitution was a precautionary measure, as Liverpool had the game and qualification to the next round in the bag by that point:
“Conor, the idea was to play him 90, but in the end, you could see that it got tougher and tougher for him in terms of load.”
“So you don’t want to take the risk of him getting injured in the last few minutes like it happened against Madrid.”
“We wanted to win this game, but we were also aware of the fact that we have to manage the load, because we would have been really, really, really unlucky if we would have lost this and still not been in the top eight.”
Jones will likely miss out on this weekend’s match against Ipswich Town at Anfield. Thankfully, only Joe Gomez and Diogo Jota are currently on the injured list. Liverpool will likely still be able to field a fairly strong but rotated team next week away at PSV Eindhoven in the Champions League, while the trip to Plymouth Argylle in the FA Cup 4th round two weekends from now will also present a chance for fringe squad players and youngsters to impress.