Arne Slot will be hoping Curtis Jones has avoided any lasting injury, but the Liverpool midfielder was forced off at half-time against Lille with a new issue.
Jones was one of four players brought into the side for Liverpool’s penultimate Champions League league game, but the midfielder only last 45 minutes.
After taking a number of knocks in the first half, receiving treatment from physio Chris Morgan and club doctor Jonathan Power, the England international was replaced at the break.
Harvey Elliott took his place and eventually scored the winner, with Slot providing an update in his post-match press conference.
Liverpool 2-1 Lille
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Slot explained that the withdrawal Ryan Gravenberch, who was also brought off at half-time, was pre-planned, as was that of Dominik Szoboszlai, whose exit was delayed due to Jones’ injury.
“The idea was to take Dom and Ryan off at half-time, but unfortunately Curtis couldn’t continue, so that’s why Dom stayed a bit longer,” he told reporters.
Questioned on Jones’ setback, Slot said: “There was a moment in the game that he felt [something] and he said ‘let’s play for five more minutes and then see how it is’.
“But he said he had to go out at half-time.”
The head coach also revealed that Conor Bradley‘s late substitution was precautionary, with no risks taken particularly as Liverpool knew by then that they would advance to the last 16.
“Conor the idea was to play him 90, but in the end you could see that it got tougher and tougher for him in terms of load,” Slot said.
“So you don’t want to take the risk of him getting injured in the last few minutes like it happened against Madrid.
“We wanted to win this game, but we were also aware of the fact that we have to manage the load, because we would have been really, really, really unlucky if we would have lost this and still not been in the top eight.
“As we know now, I think 18 points would have been enough to play top eight, but now with 21 there’s no discussion anymore.”
Jones’ injury will be monitored in the coming days, with Ipswich visitors to Anfield in the Premier League on Saturday.
The hope is that there will be no lasting damage for the No. 17 and that he won’t join Joe Gomez and Diogo Jota on the absentee list.
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