“We’re free from shackles”, “Slot finally heard our complaints” - Liverpool fans celebrate as 26-year-old gets dropped from line-up vs Crystal Palace

Liverpool fans on X are delighted to see manager Arne Slot bench Cody Gakpo. They believe that the Dutchman was holding back their attack, and have backed the manager's decision to drop the forward.

Slot has stuck with his reliable backline, featuring Alisson in goal, Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate in front of him. Conor Bradley and Milos Kerkez are the full-backs in the lineup today.

Ryan Gravenberch and Alexis Mac Allister are the pivot, with Dominik Szoboszlai playing in front of them in the attacking role. Mohamed Salah keeps his place on the right-wing, while Florian Wirtz is shifted to the left as he looks for his first goal contribution in the league. Alexander Isak leads the attack for the first time in the Premier League, as Hugo Ekitike is suspended.

Liverpool fans have praised Slot for his decision with the starting XI, and believe that the manager has made the right call. They posted:

Slot spoke about Crystal Palace ahead of the game and said in his pre-match press conference:

"They have an enormous discipline defensively, 10 outfield players plus a goalkeeper that work so hard to prevent the other team from scoring. We saw this also in the Community Shield – even in the moments when we were up, they could still be very disciplined and calm in their own half, in their mid-to-low block."

Liverpool lost the Community Shield game to Crystal Palace earlier this season at Wembley.

Arne Slot backs Liverpool star to start matches, but not play 90 minutes

Liverpool manager Arne Slot believes Alexander Isak is ready to start matches for the club. However, he is unsure if the Premier League record signing can play the full game and said in his press conference:

"I still feel 90 – [it] depends also on the pace and the intensity of the game – might be a bit too much. But not only that, also for the long term. So you can maybe give one, I would call, stupid hit to bring him to 90 and then you brought him too far over the line. So, I don't think it's smart to play him 90 yet. But he's further into his pre-season now and normally after two or three weeks in pre-season players go to 60, 70 minutes, and in some clubs they even bring them to 90. But if you look at our pre-season, we mainly bring them to 60 to 70 minutes then."

Liverpool signed Isak for £125 million on deadline day from Newcastle United.

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Sripad is a veteran Sportskeeda football journalist who has been with the company for around 10 years. His tryst with writing happened in class XI when he started penning blogs, and his foray into football was during the early 2000s, watching matches with his cousins.

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