{"id":115275,"date":"2025-10-11T10:09:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T10:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/115275\/"},"modified":"2025-10-11T10:09:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T10:09:10","slug":"liverpool-defender-suffers-major-blow-as-two-players-hand-arne-slot-fitness-boost-ahead-of-man-utd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/115275\/","title":{"rendered":"Liverpool defender suffers major blow as two players hand Arne Slot fitness boost ahead of Man Utd"},"content":{"rendered":"

Liverpool players were involved in an important evening for their respective international teams<\/p>\n

09:50, 11 Oct 2025Updated 10:09, 11 Oct 2025<\/p>\n

\"LiverpoolLiverpool defender Conor Bradley after representing Northern Ireland in their FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifier match against Slovakia at Windsor Park on October 10 2025(Image: Charles McQuillan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Liverpool defender Conor Bradley helped keep Northern Ireland in contention for World Cup qualification – but has been ruled out of the pivotal showdown with Germany on Monday. Bradley<\/a> posted a man-of-the-match performance as captain and had a part in the first goal as Michael O’Neill’s side beat Slovakia 2-0 at home on Friday night.<\/p>\n

The right-back, though, picked up a second-half booking that means he will be suspended for the clash against group leaders Germany at Windsor Park.<\/p>\n

“I have watched it back and he tries to pull out,” said Northern Ireland boss O’Neill. “The referee, at times, it was good he didn’t want to hand out yellow cards, but if he was going to give a yellow for that he should have dished out more. Especially for the opposition.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

OPINION<\/p>\n

\"AuthorIan Doyle<\/p>\n

“We have so many good young players who love playing together. It is difficult to pick one player, but Conor does stand out because he does so many good things. It was good for him to captain the team on a night like this.”<\/p>\n

Northern Ireland are second in the four-team group, separated on goal difference from Germany and third-placed Slovakia. The top team qualifies for the World Cup while second progresses to the play-offs.<\/p>\n

Bradley will miss a reunion with Liverpool<\/a> team-mate Florian Wirtz,<\/a> who hit the post with a free-kick as he featured for the duration of Germany’s 4-0 win over 10-man Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

Alexander Isak<\/a> also struck the woodwork as he made another significant step in his quest for match sharpness by playing a full 90 minutes for the first time since May but couldn’t prevent Sweden slumping to a 2-0 home defeat to Switzerland. The Swedes are bottom of their group with three games remaining.<\/p>\n

Hugo Ekitike<\/a> made his first start for France and created the opener for Kylian Mbappe as Didier Deschamps’ side cruised to a 3-0 win over Azerbaijan. Ibrahima Konate<\/a> remained an unused substitute but had trained before the game having limped out of Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat at Chelsea with a quad problem.<\/p>\n

Alexis Mac Allister<\/a> came on for the final 12 minutes as Argentina earned a narrow 1-0 friendly win over Venezuela in Miami in the early hours of Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, summer signing Armin Pecsi played in goal for Hungary under-21s in the 3-3 draw against Ukraine in their UEFA European U21 Championship qualifier while in the same competition Trent Kone-Doherty came on with 16 minutes remaining as Republic of Ireland drew 2-2 at home to Slovakia.<\/p>\n

\"\"Blood Red October issue on sale now<\/p>\n

The third edition of Blood Red \u2013 your new monthly publication from the ECHO covering everything you need to know about what\u2019s happening at Liverpool FC. is on sale now. Order your copy here<\/a> or pick up at participating retailer in the Liverpool area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Liverpool players were involved in an important evening for their respective international teams 09:50, 11 Oct 2025Updated 10:09,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115276,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[1268,44887,18,19,17,560,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-115275","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-alexander-isak","9":"tag-conor-bradley","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-liverpool-fc","14":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}