Liverpool has endured a below-par campaign after winning their 20th top-flight title in the 2024-25 campaign. They are currently out of a UEFA Champions League-qualifying place in the Premier League standings, and are without five first-team stars.
Liverpool Depleted Ahead of Next Premier League Game
Ahead of his side’s Premier League contest at Nottingham Forest this Sunday, Feb. 22, Slot revealed that summer signings Jeremie Frimpong and Alexander Isak are unfit.
“Jeremie will not be involved this weekend. We hope he will be involved next week if things go as planned,” Slot replied when asked about Frimpong’s ongoing thigh injury.
“Alex, I think he has been on the pitch now, not with his football shoes but with his running shoes, for the first time this week, so that will still take a while as well before he is ready to play for us again,” the 47-year-old revealed about Isak’s ankle and fibula issues.
Apart from Frimpong and Isak, the Reds will also miss three other players in their match at Nottingham Forest. Wataru Endo is still nursing an ankle issue, sustained earlier this month during a 1-0 league win at Sunderland. Conor Bradley and Giovanni Leoni are both likely to be out for the season with a knee injury and an anterior cruciate ligament tear.
With Isak unlikely to return before next month, Hugo Ekitike is set to lead the line for Slot’s team on Sunday. Due to Frimpong and Bradley’s absences, Dominik Szoboszlai is expected to start at right-back against Nottingham Forest, who are 17th in the table.
Meanwhile, Liverpool sits in sixth place in the 2025-26 Premier League standings with 42 points from 26 matches. They lost 3-0 against their upcoming opponents at Anfield back in November last year and will be hoping to exact revenge on Vitor Pereira’s side.
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On the other hand, England and Newcastle United great Alan Shearer has backed the Reds to defeat Nottingham Forest, who beat Fenerbahce 3-0 on Thursday, this weekend.
“Nottingham Forest have a change of manager and it was a huge decision (to part company with Sean Dyche) which sort of came out of the blue. But I think Liverpool look as if they’ve got some sort of normality back, so I’ll go for an away win. I think the form that they are in now, they’ll just have too much,” Shearer wrote in his Metro column.
The Merseyside outfit are winless in their past three meetings against Nottingham Forest.
