Arne Slot has denied the suggestion that the expiring contracts of Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold is having a disruptive effect on the squad.
Slot said that the topic of contracts doesn’t come up in the day-to-day in the Liverpool camp.
The Dutch coach insists that he is fully focused on ensuring that his current playing group improves and sharpens.
Salah sparked speculation that he would depart with comments made after the win over Manchester United when he said that he might be making his last trip to Old Trafford.
There is no suggestion that Salah is slowing down at all but when it comes to Van Dijk, Liverpool might be prepared to let him leave next summer when he will be 34 years old.
Alexander-Arnold has been linked with a move to Real Madrid with the fullback possibly keen on hooking up with England teammate Jude Bellingham.
“It’s again the boring answer that you’ll get from me,” Slot told the press this week.
“We don’t talk about contract news here. It is not disruptive because we work with the team and try to get the best out of them.”
Similarly Slot said that it was a good thing that Caoimhin Kelleher has shown ambition and a desire to play first team football.
However the coach made it clear that Alisson Becker remains Liverpool’s choice gloveman.
“I would be really worried if a player came out and said I don’t care about playing first-team football,” Slot said.
“It’s normal they want to play and it’s also normal for a club like this to have more than 11 players who want to play.
“It’s a good place to be and he’s shown many times that he’s ready whenever we need him.
“It’s a good thing he wants to play. Who knows if he’ll play for us in the future, but it’s quite clear that Alisson is the number one for this moment.”
Kelleher has expressed a desire to leave Anfield for regular game-time and the impending arrival of Giorgi Mamardashvili from Valencia might convince him to seek a permanent exit over a loan move.
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Slot has taken a tinkerers approach to moving Liverpool towards perfection and says that he sometimes needs to be the buzzkill as he looks for ways to improve.
“The big positive is that we enter into this period having started the season well. Aside from the first half against Ipswich Town on the opening day, our football has been good and the rewards we have had have been deserved,” Slot wrote in his programme notes ahead of the clash with Nottingham Forest.
“Our early objective was to take as many points as we could from our first three games and we managed to do that. At the same time, though, neither myself nor anyone else associated with the first team believes we have done so well that there is no room for improvement. In reality, the opposite is true.
“This is not to dampen excitement or to play down expectations – we want our fans to believe in what we are doing and to have hopes based on what they are seeing from the team. But at the same time, we have a collective responsibility to find areas for improvement wherever they may be and this will always be our approach whether results are good, bad or indifferent.
“The team had a lot of praise after our win against Manchester United and much of it was deserved but just as we are aware of the things we did well, we also know that there are certain elements that we could have done better. The start of the match was difficult, for example, and we also had some moments where Alisson [Becker] had to make really good saves.
“Again, highlighting these issues isn’t to downplay the result or the performance. If we can be good – and we were certainly good at Old Trafford – but still know that we can get better this is not a bad position to work from.
“To put it as simply as I can – we have made a good start but there is still so much to prove.”
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