Arne Slot Explains Trent Alexander-Arnold and Diogo Jota Substitutions

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The Liverpool manager would rather have kept two of his top performers on the pitch but fitness and injury concerns forced his hand.

With Liverpool drawing 2-2 against Aston Villa despite playing well enough to win the match more often than not, some fans and pundits turned their focus to Arne Slot’s substitutions, with the removal of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Diogo Jota especially eyebrow raising for many.

With Jota in particular looking tired as the game progressed, though, Slot explained that it came down to fitness and injury concerns and that both players had known going into the match that they were likely to come off the pitch around the hour mark due to that.

“I would have loved to play [Jota] every single minute,” Slot noted. “But when a player has been in and out for four or five months, every time he comes back we’ve maybe played him too much and he’s got injured again, I would hope people understand why we are so cautious now with 12 games to go.

“I see how much of a threat he is, so we have to keep him available for 12 more games and the Champions League and the League Cup final but that is not an easy balance to find. I would love to keep him in the team because he played really well and for Trent the same.”

There were also questions about a delayed introduction of Luis Diaz in the second half, but with the winger struggling to make an impact and appearing tired even in his limited time on the pitch the answer seems fairly evident there as well—especially with Manchester City up next for Slot’s Reds.

At the end of the day, too, as frustrating as the result was, it seems clear at that Liverpool played better against Aston Villa—their toughest opponent of the past three—than they had against Wolves and Everton in their two before. Perhaps that instead should be the focus.

“Who takes out two players playing so well?” Slot added. “But that is only because it’s a big injury risk to keep them in the team. We spoke [with the players] about this already. I said to [Trent], ‘You know why I take you out, don’t you?’ And he said, ‘Yeah yeah, we spoke about it.’”