Joe Gomez is not short on suitors this summer as he considers his Liverpool future, but Arne Slot has praised his efforts at training while touching on the centre-back’s future.
The England centre-back was left out of the matchday squad at Ipswich last weekend, and as quickly as that news broke so did a report that he was ‘exploring’ his transfer options.
A number of those options have dwindled this week as Premier League clubs continue to add to their squads, but question marks remain over whether Gomez will still be at the club next month.
Reporters posed the question to Slot early on Friday morning, and he said: “At this moment, I’m expecting everyone to be here, but you are maybe longer in football than I am [and know] that everything can change.”
Quite a coy and non-committal answer, to say the least.
Irrespective of his future, though, Slot praised Gomez’s efforts in training this week after explaining he has taken time to get up to speed after a Euros campaign on the bench.
Slot explained: “Yeah [his head has been in the right place] for three weeks. He’s worked really hard since he came back.
“He didn’t play a lot at the Euros and when he came back in the first sessions he couldn’t train for the whole session, so we had to manage his load a bit.
“That was also a reason why he wasn’t in the team [at Ipswich]. This week he had a good week in terms of [training] load, how much he could do with the team.
“He’s one of the players that I see new things from and learn things from what I see from him, also combined with other players. It’s been a good week for him and us until now.”
The 27-year-old will be in contention for Brentford‘s visit on Sunday, especially after Slot cast doubt over Jarell Quansah‘s fitness having picked up a minor injury during training this week.