Arne Slot has had a full preseason at Liverpool. But we're still partly in the dark from a Fantasy Premier League (FPL) perspective, with so many of his key charges returning late following international commitments — and players of the game should be wary of a habit he showcased at Feyenoord .
Helpfully for FPL players, Slot did appear to deploy a "first-choice" XI against Sevilla at Anfield last weekend, before other players got a runout against Las Palmas hours later. That provided some assurances that the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold , Virgil van Dijk and Alisson will be in from the start of the Premier League season, despite the short amount of time back in training.
Diogo Jota returned a little earlier than this trio, and his apparent possession of the number nine jersey makes him a very interesting asset within the game as a £7.5m midfielder. By the same token, Slot's selections against Sevilla make Darwin Nunez , Cody Gakpo and Harvey Elliott look less appealing from an FPL perspective — all could become viable options as the season progresses, but it would be a gamble to have them in from the start.
But even those set to get the nod against Ipswich Town at the weekend could provide the FPL community with a headache. That's because things are changing at Liverpool.
Jurgen Klopp was at one time the darling of FPL managers. His famed front three was the stuff of legend for fantasy football players, with very minimal rotation of his prolific star forwards.
That was contrasted to 'Pep Roulette', the name the FPL community has bestowed on Pep Guardiola's tendencies to tinker and tweak. The Manchester City manager tends to operate with a relatively small squad these days, but still finds ways to infuriate.
As the years went by, Klopp arguably drifted closer to Guardiola in this regard. But there were still some bankers: Mohamed Salah did not take well to being substituted once or twice last season, which underlines what a rarity it has been throughout his time at Anfield.
Likewise, even as Klopp made excellent use of his squad, staples like Alexander-Arnold were fairly immune to rotation. Someone owning Salah, Alexander-Arnold and Van Dijk in FPL for each of the last few seasons (fitness-permitting) won't have gone too far wrong.
So what will the arrival of Slot change? Well, it seems he has one particular habit that won't go down especially well with FPL managers.
Slot is known to love wingers . That's no bad thing, of course, and the likes of Gakpo and Luis Diaz could be ones to watch from an FPL perspective if they find new levels under the Dutchman.
But managers may well be put off any Liverpool wingers because of Slot's tendency to substitute them, sometimes en masse, around the hour mark. The 60-minute milestone is significant in FPL, as it's where the second appearance point and the clean sheet point are locked in, and earlier withdrawals are a source of major frustration.
"I asked Dennis (Te Kloese, the CEO) at the beginning of the season for a lot of wingers, because you can’t expect every winger to perform in every single game and outplay their opponents," Slot told The Athletic last summer. "So that’s why they are the players substituted most often."
We can't read much into his preseason substitutions at Liverpool, with mass changes the norm as teams get their fitness levels up. But he was true to his word last season at Feyenoord.
Luka Ivanusec would have been the stuff of FPL nightmares. At one point in the middle of the campaign, the left-winger played 45, 58, 10, 59, 54 and then 57 minutes in successive league matches.
It's not just him. Between Ivanusec, Igor Paixão and Yankuba Minteh (now at Brighton, of course, and an interesting FPL prospect in his own right), there were just six occurrences of playing a full 90 minutes in the Eredivisie all season. Rotation is not unusual, but Slot's almost mechanical use of substitutions among his wingers sets him apart.
That trio also combined for 22 goals and 15 assists, so it's clear that FPL managers would ideally want Slot wingers in their side now he is working with even better players at Liverpool. But working out who will start and who will stay on looks as though it could be something of a lottery.
Liverpool.com says: Even Salah, a must-own in FPL for so long, looks a little less appealing in light of Slot's preferences. Will the 31-year-old Egyptian really be getting full 90s with any kind of regularity?
Then again, Slot is inheriting a pretty great squad in terms of matching his tactical approach. Salah, Díaz, Gakpo, Jota and even Núñez could all provide options in wide areas, and any could yet end up being wise picks in spite of the possible game-time fears.
A version of this story was first published on May 3. It has since been updated.
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