Arne Slot told he only has one ‘irreplaceable’ player at Liverpool

Liverpool legend John Arne Riise believes Reds boss Arne Slot only has one ‘irreplaceable’ player at Anfield. The Premier League trophy appears to be heading to Merseyside after a defining weekend in the title race. Arsenal missed the chance to close the gap to Liverpool to five points on Saturday as they suffered a shock defeat at home to West Ham.

Slot’s side then brushed aside reigning champions Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium to move 11 points clear at the top of the table. Mohamed Salah produced another impressive performance for Liverpool, scoring and making an assist in a comfortable 2-0 win.

Despite the Egyptian’s sensational and possibly record-breaking output this season, Riise believes the only ‘irreplaceable’ player in the Liverpool squad is Virgil van Dijk. Reds captain Van Dijk has been one of the best defenders in the Premier League for almost a decade, making more than 300 appearances for Liverpool since joining from Southampton in 2018.

‘Liverpool haven’t had a dip in form yet this season,’ Riise told BetMGM ahead of Sunday’s clash at Man City. ‘They haven’t been at their best in recent games, but the fact they’ve still picked up points against Everton and Aston Villa is not a bad thing as far as I’m concerned.

‘They are massive favourites to win the league. They’ve got to drop points and Arsenal win every game and I don’t see Arsenal doing that, so I’m not too worried about the slight dip in form. ‘Arsenal have had a really bad time with injuries and I do think that might cost them in the title race.

‘Luckily Liverpool haven’t had too many injury issues, but I look at that squad and, apart from Virgil van Dijk, I think any player is replaceable. ‘Maybe Mohamed Salah because of the goals he scores, but, if he’s out of the team they could bring someone in who could contribute more defensively.

‘I think, as long as Van Dijk stays fit, Liverpool are in control of things.’. One of the few Liverpool players currently struggling is Uruguayan striker Darwin Nunez, who missed a glorious chance in the 2-2 draw with Aston Villa last week. Slot was unhappy with Nunez’s reaction to the miss and Riise believes it is on his Liverpool team-mates to improve his mood until he rediscovers his form.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video. Up Next. ‘Darwin [Nunez] is clearly struggling for confidence but so many players go through bad patches of form – it’s all part of being a footballer,’ Riise added.

‘When one of my team-mates was going through a tough time, I would always try and get them to do something away from football, like snooker or golf. The more you try to talk to someone about it the more it gets in their head. ‘Darwin will know he’s in a bad situation. He doesn’t need the other Liverpool players to tell him that. They just need to try and make him happy and make him smile again.

‘Unfortunately all of this pressure and the spotlight that he’s under is part of being a big club. You have to handle the pressure and if you can’t you’re not made for playing for a team like Liverpool. ‘When I joined Liverpool, I didn’t really know how big a club it was. I was lucky that there wasn’t anything like social media back then, so it was only really the newspapers that criticised a player if they weren’t doing well and if you didn’t want to read it, you just didn’t read the papers.

‘It’s not like that now. Whenever you open your phone, there will be something there that has an opinion on you and you have to accept that. People don’t realise how hard it is to play for the biggest clubs and plenty really struggle with it. ‘So many players want to be playing in your position and believe they’re good enough so, if you’re not performing at the level the clubs wants you to, all of these huge clubs have the money to just go and get another player.

‘Plenty think they have made it when they sign for a club like Real Madrid or Barcelona, however I can safely say from experience that the work only starts then. ‘I’m not saying Nunez is like that but it does show that sometimes the pressure of playing for these teams is really hard to work with, even for the best.’.

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