Arne Slot to rotate Liverpool squad for League Cup quarterfinal against Southampton

Arne Slot expressed his lack of surprise at Liverpool's impressive form across all competitions, just months after taking over from Jurgen Klopp. As they gear up to face Southampton in the League Cup quarter-finals, Slot mentioned his intention to rotate some key players to ensure they remain fresh for upcoming matches. Currently sitting at the top of both the Premier League and the Champions League, Liverpool have secured an impressive 19 wins out of 23 games in total. Slot emphasized during Tuesday's press conference that it is to be expected for a club of Liverpool's caliber to be contenders for every trophy and to maintain a strong presence in multiple competitions for an extended period of time.

"This happened last season when this club won this competition," he said. "So I am not surprised that with the quality we have we are competing at this moment for these three trophies, and the fourth one (the FA Cup) is starting in January."

The Dutch manager, short of fit defenders, is set to rotate his players for Wednesday's tie as he plans for a trip to Tottenham in the Premier League at the weekend. He does not expect forward Diogo Jota, who scored as a substitute on his return from injury against Fulham, will be fit enough to start but Federico Chiesa could get some minutes for the first time since September.

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Caoimhin Kelleher will be back in goal, having recently impressed while deputising for Alisson Becker during his lay-off, and defender Kostas Tsimikas is nearing a return. "I'm aware of the fact that we have only four defenders available and probably the ones that have started a lot of times will not play 90 minutes for sure and maybe not even at all," said Slot. "So it's going to be either academy players that are going to get playing time or it's going to be players that nobody would expect to see in the last line that are going to play in the last line tomorrow."

Slot must sit in the stands for Wednesday's match on the south coast after collecting a third booking of the season against Fulham. The former Feyenoord boss is calmer on the sidelines than the expressive Klopp but he admitted he has "fire" inside him.

"I don't always think you have to show it to have that fire," he said. "I think it's clear that if you work at a club like this or around the world at a top club you do have this fire inside you that you want to win every game."

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