‘Infuriates me…’ – Liverpool stalwart left seething at exclusion from national team squad
One Liverpool player has expressed his annoyance at being omitted from his country’s squad for their June fixtures.
A minor issue had seen Alexis Mac Allister sidelined for the Reds’ final two matches of the season, with Arne Slot explaining that the 26-year-old was in need of a rest in order to ‘recover completely’ after a manic campaign at club and international level.
The midfielder had been due to represent Argentina in their World Cup qualifying double header against Chile and Colombia this week, but Lionel Scaloni has left the former Brighton star out of the Albiceleste squad for fitness reasons.
Mac Allister annoyed by Argentina omission
While Mac Allister was circumspect about his omission from national team duty for their upcoming games, he still felt scorned by the decision from his international boss.
The Liverpool midfielder told TyC Sports: “Not being on the squad list infuriates me. Sometimes it’s a question I ask myself every day, but I’ve had some issues throughout the year. It’s not a major injury, it’s a minor one, but it’s better to rest before it gets worse. We have the World Cup very close.”
Mac Allister has just had a relentless season with Liverpool and Argentina
We can understand why the 26-year-old would be disappointed to miss out on representing his country this month, but Reds supporters won’t have too many grievances with Scaloni’s decision.
Mac Allister was Liverpool’s fourth most-used player this season with 3,569 minutes across 49 matches, and that was even with him not starting any of the four games after we clinched the Premier League title in late April. Prior to then, he’d only had his involvement curtailed by a brief suspension.
He also started six of Argentina’s eight World Cup qualifiers during the 2024/25 campaign (scoring against Brazil in March) and was over and back across the Atlantic four times in that period, so it was quite natural that the intense workload would take a toll on him eventually.
His omission from national team duty for their games against Chile and Colombia makes even more sense when you consider that the Albiceleste have already booked their place at next year’s finals in North America, so Scaloni can use any matches in the meantime to have a look at players who mightn’t ordinarily start.
From a Liverpool perspective, we’re quite glad that Mac Allister will get the whole of this month off and enjoy some much-needed rest and recuperation before another relentless season at club level is set in motion later in the summer, after which he’ll be participating in the World Cup.
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