Arne Slot needs to channel PRIME Sir Alex Ferguson

There is no doubt Liverpool have hit a bump in the road. Results - and performances - have taken a dip in recent weeks.

Arne Slot’s men have slumped out of two competitions in the past few days although they still remain odds-on favourites for the Premier League title.

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First, the Reds were eliminated from the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain. At the weekend, they were soundly beaten in the Carabao Cup final by Newcastle. A feature of both games was the paucity of options Slot felt he had at his disposal.

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He made minimal rotations from the game against Southampton last weekend going into the PSG and Newcastle games. And it’s clear Liverpool are running on empty.

Slot hasn’t been getting the same kind of performances from the likes of Ryan Gravenberch, Luis Diaz and Alexis Mac Allister for example as he was earlier in the season.

The excessive schedule has also taken its toll on first-team mainstays Trent Alexander-Arnold and Ibrahima Konate - who have been suffering with injury in recent weeks.

All in all the Premier League leaders look like a team in need of a break. Without a game for 17 days - between the cup final and the Merseyside derby - you might think that the opportunity for a bit of rest has finally arrived.

Not so.

Liverpool's internationals jet off

Rather than recuperate, the vast majority of Liverpool’s squad are heading off on international duty. The most gruelling journeys naturally are facing the South Americans.

Alisson Becker, Alexis Mac Allister, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez have all been called up by their respective national teams for South American World Cup qualification.

It’s not much easier for Wataru Endo, who plays Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for Japan. Mohamed Salah has also been summoned by Egypt and he will play in World Cup qualification matches against Ethiopia and Sierra Leone.

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They are among 18 Liverpool first-team squad members who are in action over the international window. European mainstays such as Virgil van Dijk, Konate, Andy Robertson, Dominik Szoboszlai and Diogo Jota will of course be among them.

And even further down the food chain, players like Harvey Elliott, James McConnell, Trey Nyoni, Trent Kone-Doherty and Rio Ngumoha - who have all made first-team appearances this season - have been called up by their respective age groups.

The only Liverpool players eligible for a senior call-up who didn’t get one are third-choice goalkeeper Vitezslav Jaros as well as out-of-favour Federico Chiesa.

Other players who won’t go are Trent Alexander-Arnold, Conor Bradley, Joe Gomez and Tyler Morton. They are all injured and all but Gomez would have likely merited a call-up had they been fit.

Elliott might yet be touch and go following his injury knock in the Carabao Cup final.

"You're not going"

For the likes of Van Dijk, Salah and Alisson especially, a rest would have been ideal. They benefitted from not being called up - or else released early - in October and November. No doubt those decisions require some delicate negotiations between club and country.

But maybe it’s time for Slot to take a leaf out of Sir Alex Ferguson’s book and simply put his foot down.

"Sadly, the days of Sir Alex Ferguson are over, who could just call the national team managers and say: 'No, no, listen I keep my players',” said Leeds manager Daniel Farke last week when his players were called up for international duty.

He was of course referring to the Manchester United legend’s propensity to pull his players out of international squads. Players like Paul Scholes, Nemanja Vidic, Ryan Giggs and Park Ji-sung all retired early from international duty under Ferguson’s watch too.

He disdained international call-ups, seeing Man Utd as the players’ priority.

“That March international window, he hated it,” Gary Neville told the Overlap. “He'd do a deal with the [international] manager, he'd have said, 'come on, we've got a run-in. You can have him in the summer, but you can't have him now.'”

Nicky Butt also relayed to Soccerex that Fergie simply told him: “You’re not going.”

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Slot doesn’t quite command that kind of fear at this stage of his Liverpool career. But he might come to learn that Ferguson’s ruthless streak concerning international football also coincided with Man Utd’s long sequence of success.

With players dropping off as the season draws to a close, it’s something he should bear in mind.

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