Arne Slot detailed the reasoning behind his substitutions during Liverpool’s 4-2 victory over Bournemouth in their Premier League opener.
New summer signings Jeremie Frimpong, Milos Kerkez, Florian Wirtz, and Hugo Ekitike – who netted the opening goal – all made their competitive Anfield debuts by starting Friday night’s clash.
The quartet, along with Alexis Mac Allister, were substituted at various stages of the second half, with Slot explaining the decisions in his post-match interview with Liverpoolfc.com.
The head coach said: “Not only the pace of the league, Jeremie felt his hamstring a little bit so that’s a risk – especially if the other full-back Conor Bradley is already out with an injury.
“With Joe Gomez only training twice, I didn’t feel he could already play half [an hour] in this intensity, so I started off with Wata [Endo] in that position, knowing that I could always bring Joe maybe later on for 10, 15, 20 minutes.
“Milos Kerkez plays every duel as if his life depends on it, which is a great quality, but if you play against such a good winger like [Antoine] Semenyo when you’re already on one yellow card, it’s a risk – especially knowing that we have [Andy] Robertson as well, so that’s explained in that sense.
“Hugo Ekitike came later in pre-season, comes from a good team but I don’t think you can compare that with Liverpool and you can’t compare the league. So for him to already be able to play 70 is a big, big, big bonus for us – but 90 is a risk.
“The other substitution was Macca, who has been out for two, two-and-a-half months [and] only in training for two-and-a-half weeks, so not able to play 90 yet.
“And the other one was Florian in the end, that was simply because I wanted to bring a No.9 in because we were 2-2.”
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