Liverpool manager Arne Slot cited squad rotation as the reason behind Mohamed Salah’s shock omission for Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Galatasaray.
It was the first time since October 2022 that Salah has been named as a substitute for a Champions League match. Over the subsequent 14 consecutive starts, Liverpool’s perennial talisman racked up seven goals and as many assists.
“Mo has played a lot of minutes already, so we decided to do it like this today and in the first half I was quite happy,” Slot explained in the steamy aftermath of a 1–0 loss. Despite playing the full 90 minutes of Saturday’s defeat to Crystal Palace, Salah had been rested for last week’s Carabao Cup clash with Southampton.
“We have many games to play in the coming days, we have a big game coming up, we have to utilise our squad, and utilising doesn’t always mean from the start,” the Dutch boss told Prime Sport before the fixture.
“Players can come in as well. In many of our games, players have impacted the game coming off the bench,” Slot argued. “And indeed they were talking about the last time Mo scored three coming off the bench against Rangers. And I know who the manager of Rangers was. That is my current assistant, Gio [van Bronckhorst]. So they’ve spoken about this already.”
That jolly tone had long since been lost by the end of Liverpool’s second successive defeat.
