Arne Slot has suggested that Joe Gomez should be available for Liverpool’s Champions League clash with PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday night.
Despite right-backs Conor Bradley and Jeremie Frimpong being out injured, the 28-year-old remained on the bench during Liverpool’s 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest last weekend, with Dominik Szoboszlai surprisingly deployed at right-back instead.
Aside from two full appearances in the Carabao Cup, Liverpool’s longest-serving player has only featured for 58 minutes in the Premier League this season, mainly coming on as a substitute.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference on Tuesday, Slot was asked about Gomez’s fitness ahead of the visit from the Dutch champions. The Liverpool boss responded (via Liverpool Echo):
“He’s one of the five defenders we have. He had a knee injection last week – it’s unusual not to feel anything after that.
“Beyond my decision to play Dom in that position, it’s also because Joe hasn’t been fully fit. He’ll be in the squad tomorrow, but he couldn’t train consistently throughout last week.”
Privately, Gomez must be wondering when his real opportunity will come under Slot, especially with so many defenders injured. As Paul Joyce highlighted recently, if he isn’t playing now, when will he?
Slot seemingly opted not to risk him against Forest due to the knee concern, but the defender has now been cleared to feature versus PSV. Whether he starts remains the big question until team news drops around 75 minutes before kick-off.
Interestingly, Szoboszlai appears to be trusted more at right-back than Gomez, even though the Englishman has far more experience there (104 games compared to the Hungarian’s five).
Although Szoboszlai has shown great versatility, he is far better suited to his natural attacking midfield role—especially if Florian Wirtz is unavailable, with the German missing today’s training and looking doubtful for the match.
If Slot moves Szoboszlai back into midfield, it should open the door for Gomez to start at right-back. The London-born defender has performed well whenever he’s been given minutes this season.
Based on the current injury situation, he fully deserves a place in the starting XI against PSV.
