Arne Slot reveals why Darwin Nunez did not start for Liverpool against Brighton

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Liverpool are into the quarter-final of the Carabao Cup after a win over Brighton on Wednesday.

It was never going to be an easy match for the Reds, with rotation badly needed throughout the team.

Liverpool face Brighton once again on Saturday in the Premier League and given the punishing nature of their current schedule, Arne Slot was always going to field a weakened side.

Nevertheless, Fabian Hurzeler’s team were far from full strength, too, and the Reds capitalised to earn a hard-fought 3-2 win.

What was perhaps most interesting about Slot’s team selection was the fact that he chose to leave out Darwin Nunez and instead go without a recognised centre-forward.

And after seeing Curtis Jones and Dominik Szoboszlai rotate in a sort of false nine role, the Liverpool head coach offered an explanation behind his decision.

Arne Slot explains Darwin Nunez omission

It was always likely to be a cobbled together XI on the South Coast on Wednesday.

The Carabao Cup is far from being top of Liverpool’s priorities this season and that was further underlined by Slot’s team selection.

With a few injuries still to contend with, especially in the forward line, the Dutchman did not have a lot of options to rotate.

As a result, there had been a feeling that Nunez may play. But speaking in his post-match press conference, Slot said he felt that the Uruguayan needed a rest.

READ MORE: Liverpool’s Carabao Cup player ratings against Brighton

“I prefer to play with a number nine but if they are not available – and of course we had Darwin available – but I think it was not good for him to start today after playing three games and the upcoming schedule,” he said.

“Then this was the result of what we tried to come up with and the players did really well in my opinion.”

Nunez did emerge from the bench for Liverpool, coming on with 20 minutes or so left to play.

Arne Slot guards against Darwin Nunez ‘risk’

Slot had confirmed earlier in the week that Diogo Jota will not be back fit until after the November international break.

With Federico Chiesa struggling to get fit as well, Liverpool are looking a touch light up front.

And speaking to LFCTV after the game, Slot admitted that removing Nunez from the line-up against Brighton was more risk management than anything else.

“It’s true that we had a number nine available in Darwin Nunez but because he played so many games last week we couldn’t take the risk of him playing this one again with the upcoming fixtures as well,” he said.

In the end it worked. But given that neither Szoboszlai nor Jones really troubled the scorers, we’d assume Darwin will be back in the side on Saturday.