Arne Slot is currently in the process of working out who should be in his Liverpool squad next season.
The new head coach has been fed a slightly difficult hand this summer, taking over with so many players on extended summer holidays.
With a host of key members of the first-team squad being away, Slot is having to cobble together opinions on people without having yet met them.
For the more established Liverpool stars, this is not necessarily a problem. It’s impossible to see a world where the new head coach does not want to work with Virgil van Dijk or Alexis Mac Allister, for example.
But for others – especially some of the younger players – it can be difficult. Nevertheless, it sounds like some decisions are starting to be made.
Bobby Clark set for Liverpool stay
Slot confirmed during his pre-Real Betis press conference yesterday that the lack of incoming or outgoing transfer activity was partly due to him wanting to take a look at as many players as he could.
“The first one is one of the reasons, me wanting to assess the squad, which is difficult because most of them are still not here,” he said, when asked about Liverpool’s inactivity.
Having worked with the available squad for three weeks, though, Slot has loaned Luke Chambers to Wigan for the season. The first calls are being put into action.
Others will no doubt follow. A move is in the offing for Nat Phillips still, while Kostas Tsimikas could leave as well.
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Perhaps the most intriguing will be what Slot decides to do with the academy players at his disposal. Chambers will not be the only one loaned out, but others look set to remain and fight for places in the first-team.
Slot says he has been ‘surprised’ by some Liverpool youngsters so far, and that bodes well for their chances next season.
But according to the Liverpool ECHO, a positive decision looks set to have been made on a player who the Dutch coach is still yet to see in training.
They claim that Bobby Clark is now looking ‘likely to stay’ at Liverpool this season after breaking through into the first-team in 2023/24. He won’t be sent on-loan.
Bobby Clark given chance to kick on
When assessing Liverpool’s midfield options, Clark is often left out. But that should now no longer be the case. The 19-year-old is one of the first-team.
It had looked like Clark would go on-loan last January, but Jurgen Klopp was keen to keep him around.
In the end that paid off massively for the former Newcastle prospect, as he played a big role in the Carabao Cup final and made his first starts in the Premier League and in Europe. During the latter, Joe Cole called Clark ‘fantastic.’
There will be some who feel that the amount of other midfielders at Liverpool mean that the No.42 would be better served going off and playing regular minutes somewhere else. To be truthful, that’s a view we’d probably subscribe to.
But Clark has shown quality whenever he’s been given the chance to at Liverpool and Slot has obviously seen something in him without watching him kick a ball. Big season ahead for Bobby.
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