3 things spotted in Liverpool vs Las Palmas as Arne Slot offers possible transfer hint

ANFIELD, LIVERPOOL // Having waited 84 days to see Liverpool play at Anfield again, the Reds were back in action less than three hours after the final whistle against Sevilla — immediately drawing 0-0 against another Spanish side in Las Palmas .

Arne Slot's second side — a completely different matchday squad aside from Tyler Morton , Amara Nallo and Harvey Blair, who were on the bench for both matches — was not able to provide the same level of entertainment as the first, however. In a largely drab affair, there were a few chances but Darwin Nunez was chiefly responsible for failing to make the most of them.

Neither side was able to find the back of the net in a game that was evenly-matched and lacking penalty box action. It was a fair reflection of how the 90 minutes unfolded.

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Here are the five things Liverpool.com spotted as the game unfolded behind closed doors at Anfield. Several more players got their first minutes of pre-season with the game time valuable for those stars especially.

Center-back preference and transfer hint

Amid interest from various places including PSV, Sepp van den Berg was not named in the starting XI here, with Nat Phillips preferred and Amara Nallo used off the bench. Slot said post-match that "Nat deserved to play" and that Van den Berg's minutes were being managed.

He had started pre-season well but this could well be a hint as to where his future lies, even if only in as much as there are so many other options that getting regular appearances will be near impossible.

Liverpool wants a substantial fee to allow him to leave but Van den Berg has already made it clear that he wants regular game time . He isn't going to get that under Slot with so many center-backs ahead of him and so the 22-year-old needs a move.

The Trent Alexander-Arnold role

Slot used an inverted full-back when he was at Feyenoord, but Lutsharel Geertruida was closer to John Stones than Trent Alexander-Arnold when operating like that in the Eredivisie. The early evidence is that Slot will persist with the tactic Pep Lijnders introduced with Conor Bradley moving inside on a few occasions here. Alexander-Arnold had done likewise earlier in the day.

Starting XI for Ipswich Town

Having missed out on playing in what was the stronger of the two Liverpool starting XIs, Curtis Jones , Harvey Elliott , Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo struggled to make much of an impact in this fixture. Each of the senior stars was fairly quiet, though nothing is set in stone ahead of the start of the season in terms of the starting XI at Ipswich Town.

It would be fair to say most of the starting team for the Sevilla game are in prime position to be the team on the opening weekend of the new Premier League campaign. If that was the thinking, the two matches at Anfield won't have changed it.