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And after fielding questions on a variety of subjects, Arne Slot simply couldn't resist.

Following a lengthy answer to a question regarding fringe players, a mischievous smile spread across the lips of the Liverpool boss before saying: "We play Newcastle in two days, do people know?!"

The concentration of enquiry on almost everything but Sunday's League Cup final at Wembley added to the sense of it being business as usual around much of the AXA Training Centre at Kirkby on Friday.



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We don't play every single season, every final so it's definitely special for them and also for us."

Certainly, any lingering after-effects from Tuesday's Champions League elimination at home to Paris Saint-Germain have evidently been banished, with Liverpool's focus very much now on retaining the League Cup they won so thrillingly against Chelsea last season.

Both Reds and Newcastle will be missing key players, with Trent Alexander-Arnold sidelined for the foreseeable for Liverpool along with Joe Gomez and Conor Bradley, while the Magpies are without defenders Lewis Hall and Sven Botman with Anthony Gordon suspended.

But Slot preferred to concentrate on the positives of selection.

"In this part of the season, especially in England, it is almost impossible to have all your players fit," said the Reds boss.

"Both teams maybe have two, three or four players that cannot play and that's almost a privilege because most teams have had more than two or three injuries.

"Two or three injuries is probably the minimum you can expect after four months of non-stop football.

it's a big compliment to the staff of Newcastle and our staff that so many players are available.

"Trent is a very important player to us and Anthony Gordon is a very important player to them but the good thing for both managers is there are still a lot of quality players still available."

The lack of right-back options means Jarell Quansah, who was impressive when replacing Alexander-Arnold against PSG and has been called into Thomas Tuchel's first squad as England boss for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia, is favourite to replace the vice-captain in the starting line-up.

It would represent a turnaround for the 22-year-old after a testing campaign that started by being hauled off at half-time in Slot's first game in charge at Ipswich Town back in August.

“It says a lot about his mentality," said the Reds boss

"Last season everybody saw what a talent he is and then the season started with him starting and I changed him against Ipswich, and Ibou and Virgil were and are such a strong combination that he didn’t play a lot.

"But every time he had to play, except for maybe for the first one or two games, everyone could see that maybe he is no longer a talent because as a talent you don't have any setbacks
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