Will Slot rotate after Liverpool’s early title win?

Liverpool wrapped up the Premier League title with a month to spare on Sunday.

From a Fantasy Premier League (FPL) perspective, there is a bit of trepidation about what comes next.

The Reds still have four league matches to go in 2024/25, with nothing of consequence – from their perspective – riding on the results.

So, will Arne Slot use the remaining games to tinker with his starting XI and even rotate some of the ‘undroppables’?

The Liverpool manager’s pre-match press conference on Friday will, hopefully, provide some clues as to what he has planned between now and Gameweek 38.

Until then, we thought we’d look at the players gunning for more game-time, what’s riding on each outstanding fixture, other considerations and any clues from his previous post-title period at Feyenoord.

THE REMAINING FIXTURES

Should Slot wish to “have a responsibility to the competition” (more of which below) and stick with strong starting XIs, we’ve listed what’s riding on the result of each fixture:

There’ll definitely be something hinging on the outcome of Gameweek 35’s fixture from Chelsea’s perspective. It could be the case in Gameweeks 36-38, too, although even the most optimistic Palace fan would likely say European qualification via the league is unlikely now.

From Liverpool’s perspective, Gameweek 38 is their final home game of the campaign. It’s also when they’re going to be presented with the Premier League trophy, so they’ll surely want to sign off in style.

FRINGE PLAYERS DESERVING OF STARTS?

First things first: a number of the players on the bench in Gameweek 34 are already/have been job-sharing and getting chances.

Kostas Tsimikas (£4.6m) has ousted Andrew Robertson (£5.8m) from the line-up on a number of occasions this season.

Diogo Jota (£7.2m) and, to a lesser extent, Darwin Nunez (£7.0m) are part of regular rotation with Luis Diaz (£7.8m) and Cody Gakpo (£7.2m). Of late, it’s been mostly Gakpo and Jota trading starts.

Curtis Jones (£5.3m) has 16 league starts to his name, providing relief and competition for Dominik Szoboszlai (£6.2m) and Alexis Mac Allister (£6.2m).

Were Jones, Tsimikas and Jota to get more starts in the final four Gameweeks, it wouldn’t be totally out of keeping with what went before.

If you’re looking for names who truly have been deprived of starts to date, there are three that leap out:

Wataru Endo (£4.6m) and Federico Chiesa (£6.8m) are in competition with ever-presents Ryan Gravenberch (£5.0m) and Mohamed Salah (£13.8m), although Chiesa has been used across the frontline in his cameos.

Harvey Elliott (£5.2m), probably the one whose continued omission has been questioned the most by the support base, has Salah and Szoboszlai to compete with.

“I can understand that he is sometimes frustrated by the playing time he gets because he is a good player, he showed at Liverpool already that he is a good player, but he is in competition for players that I hardly take off.

“So, Dominik Szoboszlai is always the one that just keeps on going, he also scores goals but he’s so important for us with all the running he does.

“And yeah, Mo Salah I think is quite key for everyone as well. So, he has to do it with limited playing time but he just keeps on going.” – Arne Slot on Harvey Elliott, speaking last month

There are Caoimhin Kelleher (£4.0m), Conor Bradley (£4.7m) and Jarell Quansah (£3.9m), too, understudies in goal, at right-back and at centre-half respectively. Bradley is expected back in training this week.

PERSONAL GOALS STILL AT STAKE

Chiesa needs one more appearance to qualify automatically for a winner’s medal, although a) that appearance could simply be a cameo off the bench and b) Liverpool get given 40 medals to distribute at their discretion anyway.

Elsewhere, with the Golden Boot all but assured, Salah has one eye on the record for most attacking returns in a Premier League campaign. He’s one away from the current record of 47 goal involvements.

“Goal involvements, for sure… hopefully I’m going to break it soon. I know I broke the record for 38 games. Now one goal or one assist to go I think? I counted!” – Mohamed Salah

Alisson (£5.1m) is unlikely to win the Golden Glove, however: he’s three clean sheets adrift of Matz Sels (£5.1m).

WHAT SLOT DID AFTER WINNING THE TITLE AT FEYENOORD

Now, onto the main crux of this article: what Slot did after his one and only previous title win at Feyenoord.

The Dutch side clinched the 2022/23 Eredivisie crown with two games to spare. Remaining on their fixture list were clashes with Emmen (16th, battling to avoid the relegation play-offs) and Vitesse (10th, mid-table obscurity with no chance of European qualification).

Here’s what Slot did with his teamsheets, starting with the title-clinching win over Go Ahead Eagles:

So, then, even after the Dutch top-flight title was mathematically secured, Slot stuck with the players who had got the job done.

Two of his three post-title changes were even enforced thanks to Marcus Pedersen’s injury and Mats Wieffer’s suspension.

And the one unenforced alteration, Alireza Jahanbakhsh for Igor Paixao on the left wing on the final day, was the kind of regular tweak he’d made during the campaign. Think Jota in for Gakpo on any given Gameweek for Liverpool.

KEY QUOTES FROM SLOT BEFORE THE EMMEN GAME

While we’re hoping for some more contemporaneous clues from Slot in his Gameweek 35 presser, we thought we’d revisit his pre-match press conferences for those final two Eredivisie matches in 2022/23.

Ahead of the Emmen game, Slot made mention of being a “worthy champion”. Feyenoord’s all-time points record was up for grabs, although the now-Liverpool boss downplayed the significance of that:

“I haven’t thought about Emmen that much in the past few days, but I did this morning. However, I hardly had to emphasise that Sunday is important again. You want to play as a worthy champion. I think that a possible points record is more important to the trainers than to the players. What is much more important is that they know that they also have to play a number of important matches after the season. Then you can’t sit on the handbrake. I also think that they really enjoy being allowed to play football. They play in a nice team and with pressure, but it might also be nice to do that with less pressure.” – Arne Slot, via Voetbal Nieuws

Emmen’s survival bid, and ergo Feyenoord respecting the integrity of the league, was also seemingly referenced in the “other interests” comment below:

“We want to win matches anyway. I just said that you have to present yourself as a worthy champion on Sunday, with all kinds of other interests that come with it. I can’t promise that we’ll win on Sunday, but I can promise that there will be a team that will do everything it can to win.” – Arne Slot, via Voetbal Nieuws

In terms of players with personal goals, perhaps there’s a positive omen for Salah here. Santiago Gimenez was gunning for the Eredivisie top goalscorer award at the time and, even though he had a very busy summer of Nations League/Gold Cup action ahead with Mexico, Slot gave him 90 minutes in both post-title games.

“He didn’t need much time to say that he really wants to play both matches, even though he will have [only] eight to ten days off. He wants to be top scorer, I think. But of course, you also want to play the last match in the home stadium as champion.” – Arne Slot on Santiago Gimenez, via Voetbal Nieuws

KEY QUOTES FROM SLOT BEFORE THE VITESSE GAME

There was another interesting quote ahead of the final fixture of the 2022/23 season, against Vitesse.

Slot was asked about keeping a virtually unchanged side against Emmen and why he didn’t “reward” fringe players with starts.

Jacob Rasmussen was one of those – and the Danish defender was to be left disappointed on the final day, having to make do with a late substitute appearance rather than a start.

“If you give 3-4 boys that reward, it also means that you say yes to 7-8 other boys who don’t deserve that reward.

“So, that is why we also chose too much last week not to make exceptions but just to play with the best team also because we have a responsibility towards the competition but also because I did not want to make exceptions.

“Now about the player you mention (Rasmussen), yes. But then another will think, ‘Yes, but I have also been fantastic and I have also had a lot of value’, so those are departments where I still have to think about how exactly we will get that line-up but we really want to win, I can tell you that.” – Arne Slot, via YouTube

FINAL THOUGHTS

Slot could make a mockery of this entire piece by claiming he’s now going to rotate with abandon when speaking to the press on Friday.

But if there’s nothing concrete emerging from that pre-Gameweek 35 press conference, we can at least look to his previous stint at Feyenoord for some clues.

Loyal to the players who took him to the title, he was also receptive to individuals’ personal goals. In the case we’ve discussed, it was Gimenez’s shot at the Golden Boot. Slot also implied that he’d show consideration for the integrity of the league by continuing to go strong with his starting XIs and rotate no more than usual.

The quotes above from before the Vitesse game also betray a very unsentimental approach to his squad players. There were no real rewards for bench-warming patience in those final two Eredivisie fixtures.

If there is a difference at Liverpool, it’s that he’s wrapped up the title even earlier than he did in the Netherlands. With four games still to spare, might he set aside even just one of those matches for the likes of Elliott, Endo and Chiesa? Perhaps if there’s nothing riding on the Arsenal or Brighton games, that would be an opportunity to do so.

Then again, Feyenoord’s match against Vitesse was a complete dead rubber – and he still went full strength then.

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