Newcastle Upon Tyne, Aug 26 (IANS) Liverpool boss Arne Slot is hopeful Alexis Mac Allister will be available for the club’s upcoming outing, when Arsenal visit Anfield on Sunday. The midfielder missed Liverpool’s dramatic 3-2 victory at Newcastle United, having withdrawn from a training session at the weekend due to a fitness concern.

However, Slot doesn’t believe the issue to be serious and is optimistic of being able to call upon Mac Allister’s services for the clash with the Gunners.

“We are hoping (he will be available), yes. He had to leave the training pitch two days ago, and that would not even be the biggest problem if he would have had a proper pre-season, but he missed out for so many weeks. There is a reason why you go inside; because you probably feel something, and that is the difficult balance to find with players that were out for so long in pre-season. There you bring the base for the whole season, and you can see these intensity levels, like we faced last week and this topped it up 10 times, I think,” Slot said in a post-match press conference at St. James’ Park.

“Then you need to be so, so, so fit and then it is always a risk if you bring a player that had a pre-season like this, had to go out two days ago in a training session, in this environment. With such a long season to go, it was too much of a risk for me but I am hoping for things in the upcoming one or two days so that he is available for Sunday,” he added.

Mac Allister was absent from the Liverpool squad for the club’s final game of the last season after being restricted to substitute appearances in the earlier encounters with Chelsea and Arsenal due to injury. But he only came back to action for the Community Shield earlier this month.

Rio Ngumoha’s 100th-minute winner gave Liverpool a dramatic 3-2 victory away at Newcastle United in the Premier League on Monday night. At the age of 16 years and 361 days, the attacker became the Reds’ youngest scorer of all time by settling a topsy-turvy affair at St. James’ Park.

–IANS

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