Arne Slot has revealed Diogo Jota is a doubt for Liverpool’s trip to Brentford this weekend, writes Nathan Fay at the AXA Training Centre.
Jota’s fitness is being monitored after he picked up a “niggle” in the midweek trip to Nottingham Forest where he came off the bench to score the equaliser.
The Portuguese forward has had a stop-start campaign so far with injuries limiting his playing time to just 11 starts.
Jota was absent from training on Thursday with Slot suggesting it could be a late fitness test to determine if the striker is in contention for Saturday’s trip.
The Liverpool manager said: “There is no doubt about the fact Jota is an important player for us, but he wasn’t on the training pitch yesterday, so we have to see where he is.
“I’m not sure that he will be available for tomorrow (Saturday). We will have to wait and see today.
“He felt a little bit when he came in (at Forest), a little niggle during the half hour he came in. He could finish the game, but afterwards he complained about it and that’s why he didn’t train yesterday.”
The 28-year-old missed large parts of last season due to recurring injuries. Prior to his return on Tuesday Jota had missed seven weeks with muscle problems.
Title Race
Liverpool have stumbled recently in the title race, suffering back-to-back league draws to Manchester United and Nottingham Forest reducing their lead to four points. However, Slot’s men have a game in hand on their rivals, the rescheduled Merseyside derby on February 12.
The Reds now finds themselves in a title scrap having passed the halfway point in the season with the main threat being Arsenal whose 2-1 London derby win this week closed the gap.
Slot said: “These players know how long the season is and how many games they have to be in the best possible form to win something.
“We are not as focused on the league table as other people are, we are focused on getting a good training session today and getting a good game tomorrow.”
Brentford Goal Threat
Slot’s first game at Anfield was a 2-0 victory over Brentford back in August. Thomas Frank’s side currently occupy 11th position in the league. Liverpool have overcome the Bees in the last four previous meetings, however the London side are the fifth highest scorers in the league and have a history of getting the first goal.
Slot said: “They can score goals in all sorts of ways, we all know they’re set piece strength, of course, they can score goals in the first second of the game.
“There’s a lot for me to prepare the team for when we play Brentford, now I have to take a bit more time to show my team what the strengths of Brentford are.”
