Arne Slot insists the contract situations of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk are not a distraction for him.
Salah, Alexander-Arnold and van Dijk are in the final years of their Liverpool deals and all three stars could walk away from Anfield next summer. Salah claimed after Liverpool’s last match at Manchester United that the Reds have still not opened talks, even though fans are desperate for him to stay.
Liverpool are refusing to give any updates on their contract talks and Slot insists this is not a problem for him. “Again, I’ll give the boring answer, which you’re going to get from me as long as there’s no news about this, but we don’t talk about contract situations over here,” said the Reds head coach.
“Is it distracting? Is that the word you used for me? No, it isn’t because I’m fully focused on the individuals in the team and they’re part of the team.
“I’m just focused on trying to work with them in the best possible way to get the best out of them. So it’s not a distraction for me at all.”
Slot was pleased to see Trent Alexander-Arnold star as he got two 90 minutes for England under interim boss Lee Carsley. Ten Liverpool players in total, including Conor Bradley and Kostas Tsimikas, got two 90-minute displays for their countries and Slot says they have helped get them up to full match fitness.
He claims this has helped him prepare for the hectic phase of the season, with the Champions League starting, although he may prefer them not to play every minute in future.
“Yeah, Trent proved he could do 90 minutes, but maybe he could have done that before as well,” he said. "In the Ipswich game, I saw that he became a bit tired towards the end of the game, but he played two games afterwards, so think he’s completely ready to play 90.
“Sometimes in the beginning I saw he was tired, and sometimes it’s about having another player like Connor Bradley, who can do the job really well. In some situations I was really happy with the fact that my players played 90.
“For now, it was a present I got my national team coaches. Maybe in the future I would sometimes love it to be a bit different. But it’s a positive thing that we are in such a good place that 10 players can play every minute for their national teams. It says a lot about the quality we have here.”