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Plenty of teams have slipped up away at Villa this season.

Nevertheless, on the back of last week’s draw against Everton, some supporters will be very nervously eyeing the upcoming run of Liverpool fixtures.

For Arne Slot, the draw came as another frustration.



Curtis Jones came in on the left wing after serving a one-game suspension.

And after watching Jones’ performance, Slot was asked to explain his thinking.

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Liverpool fans were not impressed by Jones’ display against Villa from the left of their attack.

It wasn’t that the 24-year-old played especially badly, but it was clear that his better work was all done when drifting to his more natural central role.

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Nevertheless, when asked to explain why he used Jones in this manner during his post-match press conference, Slot insisted that he was pleased with what he saw.

“Result-wise, going 2-1 in at half-time, you could say it didn’t work,” said the Dutchman.

“Performance-wise, it worked really, really, really well because we totally did not deserve to go in 2-1 down at half-time – again, in my opinion.”

READ MORE: Arne Slot admits Liverpool have suffered fresh injury blow ahead of Man City and Newcastle meetings

“The reason why we did this is because Lucho [Luis Diaz] played three games in seven days.

Of course, this is not true.

Rather than playing Jones out of position on the left wing, Slot could quite easily have given Federico Chiesa a chance.

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Yes, Chiesa was poor against Plymouth in his last outing, but if he’s never given game time, then how is he ever going to get up to speed.

Slot may well see the Italian more as a right-sided replacement for Mohamed Salah.

But Chiesa has played plenty from the left and is arguably more natural on that side anyway.

That Slot chose Jones over Chiesa says just about everything about how the Liverpool boss sees his No.14 right now.
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