Eight Liverpool players Arne Slot should look to discard this summer

Liverpool are now out of the Champions League after coming up short against PSG over two legs, though winning the Premier League still makes this an excellent debut season for Arne Slot.

Being quite so brilliant having added just one player (who’s done next to nothing) to his squad makes their seemingly serene path to glory all the more impressive, but whether the out-of-contract stars leave or not, Richard Hughes will have to get off his backside and do something in the transfer market this summer.

Because actually, if you scratch beneath the first team, as proven by their display against Plymouth, Liverpool aren’t all that. The lack of injuries – albeit a trait of Slot teams at Feyenoord and now on Merseyside – has played a huge role in their consistent excellence this season.

With a view to increasing their strength in depth in the summer, we’ve come up with eight players (yes, as many as eight) they may look to discard and upgrade.

Andy Robertson
We’re guessing he has, but we’re struggling to remember Robertson getting to the byline and delivering a cross at any point this season. The days when him and Trent Alexander-Arnold were battling for the Liverpool assist-maker gong are long gone.

The 30-year-old’s got one assist in 38 appearances this season having managed just two in 30 games last term, with a tactical shift first under Jurgen Klopp and now under Slot to tease more creativity out of the Liverpool midfield not sufficient to explain the dramatic drop in his output. He averaged over 11 assists across the preceding five seasons.

There’s a case to be made that Liverpool should send Kostas Tsimikas packing instead, and it is a bit of a toss-up, but the Greek international is two years younger and more accustomed to watching from the bench, as he will continue to do when Antonee Robinson, Milos Kerkez or a currently unknown replacement arrives.

Harvey Elliott
There were reports that Borussia Dortmund and Brighton were circling in January amid Elliott’s very limited game time under Arne Slot, which has seen him feature for just 567 minutes across all competitions, with his 11 Premier League appearances from the bench amounting to around two hours of football.

His fourth start of the season came against Plymouth in the FA Cup having been in from the off in the previous round against Accrington Stanley, the Carabao Cup clash vs Southampton and the Champions League dead-rubber against PSV Eindhoven.

He scored the (first-leg) winner in Paris but that tellingly did not earn him a Premier League start v Southampton and he played just 15 minutes in the Champions League return leg at Anfield. If he’s not playing he may as well be used in swap deals for La Liga targets or as a PSR buttress this summer.

Federico Chiesa
We called it when he signed and are now sickeningly smug at just how pointless a signing Chiesa has proven to be. He’s started on just three occasions this season and two of Liverpool’s five defeats have come in those games.

Chiesa starting means no Mohamed Salah, with the Egyptian’s absence perhaps more pertinent than the summer signing’s presence, but we would suggest a 51-cap Italy international who was once linked with £100m transfers should be good enough to allow the Premier League’s best player a rest against a side bottom of the Championship. If not, then what is the point of him? And there we have it.

Diogo Jota
We find Jamie Carragher’s continuously recycled claim that Diogo Jota is Liverpool’s “best finisher” very strange when Salah is right there, and while he’s undoubtedly cool in front of goal, he’s far too rarely fit to have the desired impact. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see a footballer playing football but it’s been that way with Jota for most of his Liverpool career.

In his four full Premier League seasons at Liverpool he started just 65 games out of a possible 152, and while his goalscoring rate is decent, 64 goals in four-and-a-half seasons is nothing to write home about. Manchester United flop Marcus Rashford has managed 71 in that time.

Reports suggest Slot has become ‘frustrated’ with Jota and will make him available for transfer; hoodwinking Arsenal or another suitor into spending £40m on the perennially injured forward just sounds like good business.

Alisson
We can’t imagine Caoimhin Kelleher will be hugely impressed by the thought of remaining at Liverpool and remaining as the back-up goalkeeper, but may be placated by the idea of a genuine battle with Giorgi Mamardashvili for a starting berth rather than being the clear second choice.

Kelleher wanted to leave last summer and supposedly isn’t interested in an extension to his contract, which expires in 2026. But it makes more sense for Liverpool to allow Alisson to go (regardless of that performance in Paris) with the Saudi Pro League sides tapping up the Brazilian in the summer presumably still willing to throw huge sums his and the club’s way.

The worst-case scenario would be Mamardashvili not being up to scratch, but the minimal drop-off in quality from Alisson to Kelleher makes that a risk worth taking, if indeed they can persuade the Republic of Ireland international to stay.

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Joe Gomez
This is more about PSR and the player’s happiness than anything else. We’re pretty sure any Premier League side would love to have Gomez to call upon. He’s wonderfully versatile and one of the most Never Lets Us Down players around. But Gomez doesn’t want to be that guy.

He wanted out in the summer with Chelsea and Newcastle among those interested, and will almost certainly end up being a footnote in Liverpool’s season, as has been the case in every campaign since his outstanding partnership with Virgil van Dijk in the 2019/2020 title win.

The 27-year-old has had his injury problems but he’s also spent a helluva lot of time fit and on the bench, and probably wonders – as we do – how many more than his 15 England caps he may have won had he been playing more football.

Darwin Nunez
It’s testament to Liverpool’s generally excellent recruitment that their club-record signing can be a bit pants and they can still be way out in front at the top of the Premier League.

If the £85m they had spent on a central striker had proved to be good value for money we might currently be enjoying the best Premier League team in history. Darwin Nunez has not proved to be good value for money.

While we will always have a soft spot for his chaos in the name of pure entertainment we’re now at a point where doubts as to whether he will come good have turned into near-certainty that he won’t.

Luis Diaz
It would be madness to take a No Smoke Without Fire view to a solitary transfer rumour or even two or three, but when it becomes hard to see through the screen of transfer gossip smoke then someone must have set light to the tinderbox, likely an agent.

Real Madrid, PSG, Barcelona, AC Milan and Chelsea have all been linked to varying degrees over the last year amid claims Diaz wants a hefty wage increase to stay on Merseyside that Liverpool may struggle to justify when they look at his return of 13 goals and five assists in 41 games this season.

That’s not great, Slot is ‘frustrated’, and we get the feeling that Liverpool would welcome significant offers for the Colombian.