Arne Slot defends controversial Liverpool selection as point made over squad size

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Liverpool Echo IconSportFootballLiverpool FCArne Slot defends the decision to make 10 changes to a Liverpool squad with no senior players on the bench as they lose 3-0 to Crystal Palace in the Carabao CupArne Slot defended his decision to make 10 changes to a Liverpool squad that had no senior players on the bench after Crystal Palace knocked them out of the Carabao Cup at Anfield.The Eagles won 3-0 on Merseyside to advance into the fifth round where they will play Premier League leaders Arsenal and it's now six defeats in the last seven for Slot's Reds, who entertain Aston Villa in on Saturday night.Slot kept just Milos Kerkez in from Saturday's 3-2 defeat at Brentford and while the likes of Federico Chiesa, Joe Gomez and Andy Robertson all started the defeat alongside Wataru Endo, the head coach also named inexperienced players such as Calvin Ramsay, Trey Nyoni and debutant Kieran Morrison."It is always a blow to lose a game especially to go out of the competition but it is the same selection I did last year in rounds like this," Slot said. "There are many reason why we have most six out of seven, none are good enough to accept losing so many."At Liverpool losing six of seven is always too much but if I look at our performance against Brentford two days after we played Frankfurt away I saw a team that struggled with playing three games in seven days, which is not a complete surprise when I see the struggle some players have had in pre-season, or coming from different leagues and it is a challenge to play three games in seven days."And in two days we play Villa and the last time I played a player I thought was ready for that programme was Alexander Isak but it turns out he wasn't and went out with an injury.

Last time we played against Southampton, Giovanni Leoni, was injured in a game like this and we got two yellow cards for Hugo Ekitike. This felt to me the right decision and I haven’t changed my opinion on that after the result."When we played West Ham (last year in the Cup) I don’t think we had Salah on the bench so a year ago I did the same but maybe the line up fell differently.

I saw Manchester City’s line up and I don’t think they had one starter from the weekend, but if you look at it, it looks like they had 11 starters."Maybe it gives a bit of an insight into how big a squad they have. We are only missing four players and I had to have four players under 19."Slot saw substitute Amara Nallo sent off for the second time in his Liverpool career just 12 minutes after his introduction when Justin Devenny went down when clean through and the Reds boss explained how first-team stars Ibrahima Konate and Virgil van Dijk attempted to lift the spirits of the young defender after the defeat.Slot added: "I didn’t need to say that much because Ibou and Virgil immediately went inside to speak to him, that tells me they are great human beings.