Arne Slot has hit back at claims that Florian Wirtz is suffering from a crisis of confidence amid an extended goal drought, saying he is not surprised the £116million man was involved in Liverpool’s equaliser against Sunderland.
Wirtz seemed to have broken his duck when he found the back of the net late in Wednesday’s 1-1 draw with Sunderland, but his effort was deemed an own goal after the replay revealed a considerable deflection from Nordi Mukiele.
The player appeared downcast on discovering the goal had been taken away from him, but Slot denied suggestions the midfielder is low on morale.
“If you only have confidence from goals, that is the wrong thing,” said the under-pressure Dutchman. “You can see his confidence from how often he wants the ball and how often they give him it.
“So he has a lot of confidence but it's also clear he came back with an injury from Germany, so I am happy he can play so many minutes. He has done well.
“I am not surprised he was involved in the goal against Sunderland, he was one of the ones who kept constantly trying and was creative."
Another Liverpool star under the microscope this season is Mohamed Salah. The club’s talisman of previous campaigns has fallen out of favour this year, failing to start in either of the Reds’ last two outings, but Slot maintained that he is a key player in his squad despite waning minutes.
“I think every player, in my mind, can start, and Mo (Salah) is an exceptional player for us. He is always in my mind to either start or to come [off the bench].”
He added that constant discussion of Salah’s absence is only natural: "The chatter, yes [I understand it] because he deserves that, he has been so influential for me and six or seven years. It's completely normal people talk about it when he isn't [playing]."
Federico Chiesa finds himself in a similar position to Salah. The Italian has struggled to crack the starting lineup despite regularly impressing off the bench and making a superb block to deny Wilson Isidor an injury-time winner midweek.
Slot continued: “As I just said, every player has a possibility to start but we have many options to start in his (Chiesa’s) position.
“Normally you bring a striker in to score but he in this situation kept on running when a player might stop and think they cannot do a lot one-v-one, so that says a lot about his mentality to not concede."
