Slot: Current form of Robertson is a lot to do with injury interrupted pre-season

Arne Slot is not concerned with the current form of Andy Robertson saying that the defender is playing catch-up after an injury interrupted pre-season.

Any long term observer of the left-back undoubtedly respects his tireless work rate with the way he tracks his opponent in a defensive sense and then becomes a attacking weapon with his crosses into the box and chipping with the odd vital goal along the way.

Despite being only 30, Robertson has plenty of clocked up plenty of miles on those legs due to amount of games that Liverpool  played in the Jurgen Klopp era.

His first season coming from Hull saw Robertson steadily establish himself and by the end of that campaign he has become the incumbent.

But in a measure of his durability in the following five seasons, Robertson played an average of 47 games per season for Liverpool.

His only lengthy injury absence came last season when he injured himself on international duty dislocating his shoulder and was out for just over three months.

This season Robertson has started all but one of the Premier League fixtures and made 13 appearances in all competitions but it is fair to say the fan favourite has not looked at his sharpest.

Speaking at his press conference before today’s clash with Brighton, the manager discussed the subject and highlighted some reasons for that as the Echo reported.

“I think his current situation is what you can expect if a player misses out on pre-season and a new manager comes in, so you miss quite a lot.

“And then when you start to play, maybe he thinks a bit too much because there are not so many things different but in some situations we ask for a bit different positioning from a left full-back.

"For me he is a bit in that period of time where he is thinking ‘okay, I’m here now, should I be here or there?’. That’s something I’ve seen a lot from other players in the past. The moment he stops thinking but is just acting on what we expect then he will be fine.

"That, combined with the fact that Robbo has always been a great player for this club especially because he went up and down, up and down all the time.

“Therefore he needs to have some time because he missed out on pre-season to come back to that up and down, up and down full-back all the time. I see him coming there more and more, that’s the good thing."

Slot also touched on the impact of international football and especially someone like Robertson who is currently the captain of Scotland and  being such a proud competitor, he just loves leading his nation into battle, even if it comes at a physical cost.

"Especially if you missed out on pre-season and have to go into a programme where you’ve missed the base tactically, when it comes to us, and maybe physically as well.

"For me it’s not that big of a surprise that he’s not playing all of the games for us because unfortunately he came back (from the Euros) with an injury. I think he was only on the pitch three or four days before he played the friendly in our stadium (against Las Palmas in August)."