Liverpool are toeing a very fine line this season with their squad planning and team selection.
So far, the Reds haven’t been caught out, but it feels inevitable that Arne Slot will have to face the music eventually. A lot of bold decisions were made last summer and very few seem to have paid off.
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The transfers are starting to prove fruitful, with Florian Wirtz, Hugo Ekitike, Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong all now coming in their own, while £130m star Alexander Isak is at home with a broken leg.
But it’s the inactivity that feels like a ticking time bomb, as the Reds don’t have a replacement option for Cody Gakpo at left-wing and the injury to Giovanni Leoni is destined to cause a massive problem.
Right now, the reigning Premier League winners are getting away with it, and their latest scare has been resolved by one of the competition’s rules, but Liverpool won’t be able to get lucky all the time.
Loophole saves Slot from disaster
Last weekend, it was confirmed that Dominik Szoboszlai would not be eligible to play against Wolves because he had received five yellow cards across the season, resulting in a one game suspension.
Fortunately, the Reds managed to win without their best player this season, although at times it was quite a struggle before 2-1 result was confirmed, especially since Wolves are 20th in the league.
Nonetheless, the Hungarian is now available and the hit taken from playing him so often – making it all the more likely that he could get suspended – wasn’t as bad as most fans might have feared.
However, it’s only because of the Premier League rules that Slot hasn’t had another situation like it.
Ibrahima Konate is currently sitting on four yellow cards (one short of the five quota) and since there are no alternative options to playing him at centre-back alongside Virgil Van Dijk because Joe Gomez missed the Wolves contest with an injury, there would have been a high chance of risking a booking.
According to The Athletic, while Konate is at risk of being suspended if he gets a yellow against Leeds, there are several players that are going to avoid the potential punishment – a huge result.
The FA rules state that after gameweek 19, the yellow card tallies are cleared and the players will instead have to avoid reaching 10 yellow cards before gameweek 32, which would result in a two-match suspension.
As such, while Konate has just the one game to get through before he’s safe, players like Van Dijk, Ryan Gravenberch and Milos Kerkez are guaranteed to be safe as they only have three bookings.f
Each of the players has received the number of yellow cards they have because Slot plays them often, and so it’s only natural that Liverpool would miss them if they were kept out for any period of time, but it’s quite impressive that only Szoboszlai fell into the trap, while everyone else avoided it.
The insistence within the club of having a thin squad might help when it comes to planning, emphasising quality over quantity, but when injuries and suspensions start to hit, it can be brutal.
Now that 2025 is nearly over, we can confirm that Slot appears to have toed the line quite nicely, but it’s going to be a struggle to continue the Reds’ good fortune throughout 2026 and beyond.
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