Arne Slot offers Curtis Jones update and ‘good thing’ about Liverpool injury scare

Arne Slot claimed it was too early to tell the severity of Curtis Jones’ injury after the Liverpool star was hauled off in their pre-season win over Real Betis.

The Dutchman saw his new team claim victory in Pittsburgh courtesy of Dominik Szoboszlai’s strike, but it wasn’t all good news for Slot, who had to bring Jones off. He couldn’t place a diagnosis on Jones’s muscle complaint but said the withdrawal was precautionary as he gets set to be assessed by Liverpool’s medical team.

Jones has spoken of his desire to become an increasingly influential figure as the Reds embark on a new era, but his setback may halter his hopes of impressing in pre-season. Slot claimed the academy graduate could’ve continued, but was clearly not himself.

He said: “I think it’s too early to tell [how bad it is]. He maybe could have played on, but I think maybe you could see he was not at 100 per cent. In a friendly game, with so many days coming up in our tour, it was best to take him off.

“Hopefully he can recover from [it] really fast, but we have to wait and see. We hope he recovers really fast so we can see him in the next few games.”

Liverpool underwent a midfield rebuild last term under Jurgen Klopp as he bought in four new players – Szoboszlai and Alexis Mac Allister among them.

The Reds have taken a mixed squad across the Atlantic, utilising some of their more established stars as well as some young talents. Jones’ injury meant that Slot could throw Trey Nyoni into the fold as he attempted to make the best of a bad situation.

The Dutchman added: “It’s always a pity if he has to go out after 25 minutes, half an hour. And before that you could see that he was not completely free.

“The good thing about that was that we brought someone [on] that impressed me in the 45 minutes to an hour he played afterwards. That was the positive thing of Curtis going out for Trey, but of course for Curtis it’s a pity that he couldn’t play on.”

Liverpool’s next assignment across the Atlantic will be a clash with Premier League rivals Arsenal. Three days after that they’ll take on Manchester United with their season beginning in less than a month.