Arne Slot confirms Liverpool are missing five players for Arsenal clash

Liverpool manager Arne Slot has confirmed his side will be missing up to five players for their trip to face Arsenal this weekend.

Having made a record-breaking start to life on Merseyside, he faces his toughest test so far as they take on last season’s league runners-up. We can’t forget that Arsenal handed Liverpool one of their four league defeats at the Emirates Stadium last season.

Heading into the game, we already know that their opponents are missing key figures with Martin Odegaard, William Saliba and Riccardo Calafiori are all out of the game for differing reasons and there’s still Bukayo Saka and Jurrien Timber who are doubts.

But Slot is also harbouring some absentees; Alisson Becker and Harvey Elliott are out until mid-November at the earliest. The same goes for Diogo Jota who came off against Chelsea and was replaced by Darwin Nunez during the midweek win over RB Leipzig. He also confirmed fresh team news with doubts over both Federico Chiesa and Conor Bradley, he said. “Chiesa might train today. Diogo not and Conor - let’s see if he can be with us tomorrow.”

If Liverpool do win, they will equal their second-best start to a Premier League campaign - one that can be only bettered by their 2019/20 league-winning campaign under Jurgen Klopp. He will face a pumped up Arsenal side in front of their own fans, roared on by manager Mikel Arteta who claimed his side will be defiant on Sunday.

“Well, we played two nights ago with players coming from internationals after flying from Brazil and many countries. I was expecting a bit of a drop off. And the fact that we put so much in the first half and didn’t get the distance in terms of the scoreline, I think we paid a bit for that. Then we made life more difficult for us because we started to give the ball away in not the right areas and then it was more open.

“That didn’t help. But we have now four days. Believe me, come Sunday we’ll be flying. We’ll review, have a day off, then two days to prepare the game. Sunday is far and we are more than comfortable that we’ll be in the right place.”