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A total of 12 senior players remained in Merseyside as a youthful 21-man team jetted off to Holland for the final Champions League group stage match on Wednesday evening.

With Liverpool already securing a top-two finish and direct qualification to the last 16 - a draw would clinch the top spot ahead of Barcelona - Alisson Becker, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Ibrahima Konate, Virgil van Dijk, Alexis Mac Allister, Ryan Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai, Luis Diaz and Mohamed Salah have all been given a break.

However, Slot views the match as somewhat of a free pass for his team and believes the revamped Champions League format renders the result inconsequential for Liverpool, although PSV still needs to secure their place in the play-offs at the very least.

"The players don't need to prove themselves," said the Reds boss.

If you look back at our season and the players who play all the time, we always try to give them a break after three, four or five weeks when it's the League Cup or FA Cup to help them get their freshness back.

"It has taken me a while to understand this new (Champions League) format, but I'm now 100 percent sure it doesn't matter if you end up first or second because we are guaranteed to play the team that is 15th, 16th, 17th or 18th (in the last 16), and then it's down to the draw.

"Thirteen or 14 players have mostly shared the playing time so it will also be good to get other players into a game-rhythm as well because we will need them if we start to get injuries

When they play in the League Cup they could beat Southampton and Brighton

I do think about some sentiments but he didn't play against Lille last week.

Additionally, Slot confirmed that the absent players will take a short break before they start gearing up for the vital Premier League match coming up on Saturday afternoon against Bournemouth.

"They will be off," said Slot