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Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni has admitted that Liverpool midfielder Alexis Mac Allister is "not at 100 per cent" but is still likely to start for his country against Ecuador.
Scaloni added that Mac Allister "is fine". However, the Liverpool ace has yet to complete 90 minutes this season after missing a large part of the summer recovering from an injury that kept him out of the final matches of the 2024/25 campaign.
Mac Allister sat on the bench throughout Argentina's 3-0 victory over Venezuela last week. He came off the bench for 20 minutes against Crystal Palace in the Community Shield at Wembley but has only played around 140 minutes in Liverpool's three Premier League games since then, missing the trip to Newcastle United entirely.
As Argentina plays last — alongside Brazil — of the nations where Liverpool players are involved this week, that could impact Mac Allister's availability for the trip to Burnley on Sunday.
Curtis Jones is another option to play at the heart of the Liverpool midfield. He didn't get selected by Thomas Tuchel to represent England against Andorra and Serbia, so is well rested.
Liverpool has a home game with Atletico Madrid in the Champions League to consider next Wednesday too, before the first Merseyside derby of the new season takes place in the early Saturday kick-off slot just three days later.
Ryan Gravenberch was rested by the Netherlands as they beat Lithuania by three goals to two. Dominik Szoboszlai is always a key man for his country, Hungary, but he has been filling in at right-back lately and has done so well that he might continue there.
Jeremie Frimpong is expected to return soon but there is no exact date set for when he will be back yet. Arne Slot will provide an update in his pre-Burnley press conference later this week.
"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," Slot said of Mac Allister ahead of facing Arsenal.
"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.
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"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.
"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, hoping things in the upcoming one or two days so that he is available."
Liverpool.com says: The Reds have more than enough options available so no risks will be taken. This is the first point in the season when the level of squad depth will be properly tested with Liverpool having only played once a week up to now.
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