Arne Slot has eased injury concerns over Liverpool midfielder Wataru Endo. The Reds cruised to a 4-1 victory over Ipswich Town on Saturday afternoon thanks to a Cody Gakpo brace in addition to goals from Dominik Szoboszlai and Mohamed Salah. Such was Liverpool’s dominant position after Gakpo’s second of the afternoon, Slot opted to ring the changes and hand a rest to Ryan Gravenberch in particular.
On in the Dutchman’s place was Endo but he was on the receiving end of a high challenge from Julio Enciso, who himself was a second half substitute. The Ipswich debutant was shown a yellow card for his tackle and Slot has admitted he initially feared the worst.
Slot said: “Yes, when the foul was made I was like, that doesn’t look good, and the reactions from the players that were around him showed me. I was like, let’s wait and see, but immediately during the game already he shakes his head one or two times and just goes again.
“His mentality is unbelievable – and he was fine. It was only a yellow so I assume that the fear I had was not realistic because it was only a yellow. Liverpool’s win means they remain six points clear of Arsenal at the top of the Premier League table having played one game fewer than their closest title rivals.
Though despite the comfortable win, Slot wasn’t best pleased with his side’s failure to keep a clean sheet. “Yeah, that’s mostly because we scored an early goal. It’s been a few times now that we played a home game that we conceded a goal in the start of the game, but I think today is the way you want to start the game: we were aggressive, dominant,” he added.
