For Slot’s Liverpool, rest is more vital than winning the rankings

For their last Champions League league-phase match, Liverpool can afford to rest a number of their regular starters, and manager Arne Slot stated on Tuesday that giving players a break is more important than keeping the team atop the standings.

Along with Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konate, Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, Dominik Szoboszlai, and Luis Diaz, captain Virgil van Dijk, leading scorer Mohamed Salah, and goalkeeper Alisson have been benched for Wednesday’s match against PSV Eindhoven.

Liverpool will have a lot of important games this season because they are assured a spot in the Champions League’s round of sixteen, lead the Premier League, and are still in the FA Cup and League Cup.

“I think we are playing, like all the teams in Europe, many, many, many games and these players have already, so all the ones that are left behind could have played tomorrow,” Slot said to reporters.

“Looking back at our season, we gave them a vacation during the week that was the League Cup or the FA Cup practically every time after three, four, or five weeks.

“If there was a moment for them to get some freshness back, we’ve always done that.”

Even though Slot’s team has won all seven of the competition’s games, a loss against PSV may still push Barcelona above Liverpool at the top, but the manager wasn’t too worried about their finish.

Liverpool is unable to fall outside of the top two, and their next opponent in the round of 16 draw will not be determined by their ranking.

“It took me a while to understand this new format, but I always say when I think I’m 100% sure I used 99.9%, but now I can say I’m 100% sure that it doesn’t matter at all if we end up first or second,” Slot said.

“Because we will play a team that is in between 15th and 18th position, and the teams we will play will ultimately be drawn.

Since we are now ranked one or two, we cannot fall to number three, therefore this is a game for us.

“But a very wise man once said to me, I’ve never seen anything good coming from losing a football game, so we are not going into the game tomorrow trying to lose the game, we will do everything we can trying to win it of course.”

PSV is now in 19th place with 11 points, and they would qualify for the playoffs if they avoided losing against Liverpool.