Social media was awash with perplexed and frustrated Liverpool fans after the teams news for their clash with Crystal Palace on Wednesday was announced, with the squad named by Arne Slot seen as an admission by many that the Dutchman couldn’t care less about their progress in the Carabao Cup, or indeed a victory to break them from their funk.

Ten changes to the starting XI and six players on the bench with squad numbers in the 90s was testament to that indifference and suggests Slot believes his Liverpool stars need a rest more than the club needs a win, which is quite something after five defeats in six and four on the spin in the Premier League.

The one player who retained his spot from the 2-1 defeat to Brentford also felt hugely significant, given Milos Kerkez might just be the first on Liverpool fans’ list of players to drop.

Gary Neville said Milos Kerkez looked like a “baby” during the defeat to Chelsea and urged Slot to remove him from the first XI after the Brentford game.

“The left-back is becoming a worry,” Gary Neville said. “He [Milos Kerkez] scored last night but watching him, he has to be taken out I think.”

“If he carries on playing Kerkez at left-back and he carries on playing Bradley at right-back, and they carry on being as exposed as they are in midfield, you’ll keep getting the same results.

“Every single game you’ll be flipping a coin and thinking, ‘Are we gonna win or are we gonna lose?’, and that can’t be what Liverpool are about with the way they’ve performed in these last 12 months.

Liverpool hero John Aldridge later insisted Kerkez ‘needs to be taken out of the firing line’, but Slot has done the exact opposite.

He’s the man front and centre with the firing squad ready to take aim. Maybe his place in the team suggests he’s about to be dropped from the Premier League XI, but if not Kerkez could reasonably ask why he’s not deserving of a rest when his slumping first XI teammates are.

Slot trotted out some familiar excuses for Liverpool’s dire formwhen revealing his reasons for the mass changes to his squad on Wednesday.

“People who know this club and have followed this club for a few years know that that in this competition, we also use this for our younger players. We want to create a pathway for them to play in front of 60,000 people, in front of our own fans. That’s one of the reasons,” Slot said.

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“The other reason is that we only have four or five injuries, but if I have to play again the same players, I think there are multiple reasons why we haven’t won as much, or why we lost so many games, and with all the reasons still no excuses to lose so many.

“But it hasn’t, of course, been helpful that almost every time we were only two days in between the games we had to play after, we had to play away from home and then again an away game.

“So if we keep playing the same players, like, for example, I tried with Alexander resack, with players that are missed out on preseason, that is a big risk of another injury, and we only have at this moment of time, 15 or 16 senior players available.”