Every word Arne Slot said on Alexander Isak, growing Liverpool injury list and Hugo Ekitike plan

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Two difficult ones again, two home games, that's really nice."So I think it's the time for the players we do have available to do what they have done so many times, to roll their sleeves up. But I see the same as what you were just saying that their results throughout the whole season haven't been what they were hoping for but they come closer and closer to results – especially Arsenal away, of course, where they were very close to a result over there."As always, there's a challenge in every Premier League game and that's the same for this one."On the players' workload increasing and Micky van de Ven's challenge“That's the extra problem you get with injuries.

I think I've said a lot about the tackle of Xavi Simons, which for me was completely unintentional, and I don't think you will ever get an injury out of a tackle like that.“The tackle of Van de Ven, if you make that tackle 10 times, I think 10 times there is a serious chance that the player gets a serious injury.”On Rio Ngumoha"I think I said last time already that for his age, if I'm correct he's 17, I think he has, I'm not 100 per cent sure, the most minutes of all 17 year olds in the Premier League, so that tells you how much playing time he gets, how special that already is for a 17-year-old."That also tells you something about his quality because it's not completely normal for a 17-year-old already to have so much playing time as he had. He has so much in his locker, I think that's the way you say it here."I think he's adjusted to the Premier League now.

And the first thing, it’s been a really challenging and difficult period for him, I think.“You join a new club and usually when you join a new club you are, and he was of course, very excited and you want to show immediately all the qualities you have but that was simply impossible.“Maybe no-one understands but if you haven’t trained for three or four months on a serious level with the team and you’re playing in this league… in this league you need to be on the top of your game to impact a game of football.Alexander Isak was forced off immediately after scoring against Tottenham(Image: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)“That took, which we all knew, months before we could bring him there because there was no pre-season, there were games, games, games.“We had hardly any time to train, so we always knew that it would take him time and that’s why he is so unlucky that he is now injured because I think we all saw with his goal against West Ham, with this goal [against Tottenham], that he got closer and closer to the player he was at Newcastle.”Is Florian Wirtz okay after limping at Spurs?“Yes. Because the Premier League is, if I say 50-50 I exaggerate a bit too much, but set-pieces are so, so, so important.Virgil van Dijk challenges for the ball with Tottenham's Cristian Romero(Image: Getty Images)"That's why it's a big frustration for us that we are where we are this season, because last season when we were halfway through the season we had not even conceded one set-piece yet and in the second half of the season – where I've said many times already that we didn't play the same football anymore as we did [in the] first half of the season, not as good anymore for all kinds of reasons – we had a great set-piece record because I think we scored seven set-pieces [in the] second half of the season."So, it's a chance for winning the league if you have a good set-piece balance.