Liverpool boss Arne Slot is ready to get brutal with one of his star players (Image: Getty)
are sitting pretty at the top of the Premier League by a comfortable margin, but head coach may need to consider upsetting one of his key stars if he is to keep the Reds there.
The Reds were held to a 1-1 draw by Nottingham Forest on Tuesday after Diogo Jota’s goal from the bench cancelled out Chris Wood’s opener, a result that offered the chance to close the gap on them in the title race.
The first hour or so witnessed a laborious performance from the table-toppers before a double substitution from Slot, sending on Jota and Kostas Tsimikas for Luis Diaz and Andy Robertson.
After Jota’s goal and the assist from Tsimikas, were rejuvenated and could have easily snatched the win, even if a draw was a fair result on reflection.
But the idea played far better with Jota as the central striker rather than Diaz offered a glimpse into how Slot can tweak his tactics to get his side firing again.
They have won just three of their last seven matches and lost 1-0 in the first leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against . The free-flowing football that saw them destroy West Ham 5-0 on December 29 seems like a distant memory.
If nothing else, Slot’s post-match comments indicated the Dutchman was frustrated with his team’s inability to take all three points away from the City Ground.
“Since the New Year, in two out of three games most agree with me where I say we deserve more than we got,” Slot said.
Luis Diaz was hooked for Diogo Jota and may be benched against Brentford (Image: Getty)
“The only one the pundits didn’t agree with was the [Manchester] United game but when you look at the chances we both created, we deserved more than a 2-2 in that one.
“Too many times now, we deserved more than we got and this is something we have to adjust as soon as we can. Our fans, our players and me, we want to win the league but we want the fans to come and see us and like what they see.”
The obvious change to make would be to drop Diaz, who has found the net three times in his last 12 appearances.
Compare that to earlier in the season when he bagged nine in his first 15 games – including a hat-trick against Bayer Leverkusen, and it shows a player in decline.
Diogo Jota’s equaliser grabbed a vital point for Liverpool (Image: Getty)
Slot has his fair share of blame to take for that, having chosen to deploy Diaz as a makeshift No. 9 ahead of Darwin Nunez, with Cody Gakpo impressing on the left and working wonders on the right.
Diaz, 28, would be the most expendable out of the trio right now and Jota’s impact from the bench could spell bad news for the Colombian in the coming weeks, with taking part in four different competitions within the next month.
Of course, the winger can make himself a key player in that busy run of fixtures if he gets back to his best.
But Slot may feel that spell out of the starting XI might be the best course of action to get back to winning ways – and the trip to Brentford may offer the best opportunity after Jota earned his chance with a vital goal.