Arne Slot says he could use a combination of young players and creativity to address Liverpool’s defensive deficiencies ahead of their Carabao Cup quarter-final against Southampton.

Andy Robertson’s red card against Fulham means he is unavailable due to suspension, leaving Liverpool’s head coach with just four senior defensive options – Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez, Jarell Quansah and Trent Alexander-Arnold.

Slot has been keen to rotate his players in this competition and will give some of his key first team players a break to help them cope with the intense Christmas calendar. Van Dijk has played the most minutes of any Liverpool player this season (1890) and Alexander-Arnold the sixth most (1446).

Left-back James Norris and centre-back Amara Nallo are two academy players who were in the squad for the final matchdays and could feature, while Slot hinted at a possible personnel surprise in his back four.

“I am aware of the fact that we only have four defenders available and probably those who were often in the starting lineup will certainly not play 90 minutes, perhaps not at all,” Slot told reporters during his pre-match press conference Game conference.

“It will either be academy players who get game time or players who no-one would expect to be in the back row.”

Slot’s defensive options were limited due to injuries to Ibrahima Konate, Conor Bradley and Kostas Tsimikas. While the first two remain out, Tsimikas is close to a return.

“Kostas comes close,” Slot said. “Today may be his first time training with us, so let’s see how that goes. Ibou (Konate) and Conor (Bradley) are still not training.”

In the 2-2 draw with Fulham, Diogo Jota and Federico Chiesa returned to the matchday squad after both being out through injury for several months.

Both are expected to have the opportunity to further develop their fitness tomorrow, provided they are fit. However, Jota was unable to train on Monday after scoring against Marco Silva’s side.

“Diogo would definitely have been the ideal player for him, but he wasn’t fully fit after the game, so he didn’t train with us yesterday,” said Slot. “Let’s see if he can train with us today. Hopefully he can get a few minutes, but I don’t expect him to start.

“(It’s) definitely a moment where he (Chiesa) can get minutes. The number of minutes is a question mark. You can’t expect him to play 90, especially at this level where the intensity is so high, because he’s been out for five or six months now. If he has a good training session he will make minutes. Whether he starts or comes in and plays the second half is something we have to decide on.”

Caoimhin Kelleher will return in goal and it will be a chance for the likes of Wataru Endo and Harvey Elliott to also gain valuable playing time. The former started both Carabao Cup games, while Elliott is building up his match fitness after an injury layoff.

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