The old adage is nothing can be taken from what happens in a pre-season friendly and that you shouldn’t read too much into anything that occurs, so here’s why 15 minutes of Joe Gomez action has such a big impact on one man’s future.
Our No.2 was among the first team of the day as Arne Slot met our home supporters for the first time and his short involvement was somewhat of a surprise, especially given the number of minutes the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold, Alexis Mac Allister, Luis Diaz and Alisson Becker played.
The England defender entered the pitch alongside Stefan Bajcetic and Luca Stephenson, two others that make this situation more interesting.
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Given our failure to land the signing of Martin Zubimendi, you would have thought minutes for our 19-year-old midfielder who can play in the No.6 role would be highly desired but it was Wataru Endo and Ryan Gravenberch who were handed the majority of game time.
What that means for the former Celta Vigo teen is a different issue altogether but seeing Luca Stephenson at right-back and Joe Gomez at centre-back surely sent a message to Sepp van den Berg.
It would have easy at this juncture for our longest serving player to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold and allow Van den Berg to play in his natural position.
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Although this would have robbed Stephenson of his highly impressive appearance, it would have ensured that the former Mainz and Preston loanee was not left as the only first-team player to not get minutes in the game.
Although our new head coach confirmed after the Las Palmas game that the 22-year-old didn’t play because of “load management” and certainly didn’t hint that a departure was looming, this 15 minutes would have been a manageable load.
Seeing Gomez also not deployed at right-back may also suggest that he is now viewed as a centre-half again and not as a utility full back as Jurgen Klopp deployed him last season.
Therefore, we could suggest that our central defensive options are: Van Dijk, Quansah, Konate, Gomez, Phillips and Van den Berg (in that order).
So, we could then say there is already enough cover at centre-back, Van den Berg will leave the club this summer and Gomez won’t play anywhere but the middle again.
We could also be very wrong but these subtle decisions in a game where minutes for everyone in a new system was key – may well have revealed more than Slot was hoping people would notice.
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Dont see the reason why Slot is having headaches with his team’s No 6 yet he has a player like Gomez,a neutral player,who is comfortable in playing in many positions