LIVERPOOL, England (AP) — Liverpool has yet to allow a goal this season and Mohamed Salah has scored in each of the three games — all victories.
If this is what contract distractions look like at Anfield, new manager Arne Slot is fine with it.
Salah, captain Virgil van Dijk and right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold are all in the final year of their deals, and though it's still early in the Premier League season Liverpool is the only team keeping pace with defending champion Manchester City.
Slot reiterated Friday at a press conference that “we don't talk about contract situations over here” — unless there's a new deal — and said the focus is on making it four wins in a row when Nottingham Forest visits Merseyside on Saturday.
“I'm fully focused on the individuals and the team," he said about the trio in question, “and they are part of the team and trying to work with them in the best possible way to get the best out of them. So it’s not a distraction for me at all.”
The transition from Jurgen Klopp has been seamless.
Slot is the first manager to win his first three Premier League games without conceding a goal since Sven-Göran Eriksson at Man City in 2007.
“It's not the defense who keeps a clean sheet — it's 11 players who keep a clean sheet,” Slot said. “We try to convince them constantly about this because in an ideal world we don’t need (goalkeeper) Allison. It’s a team performance that we don’t concede and that has a lot to do with us putting in a lot of work without the ball.”
The schedule gets busy now, though, with seven games in the next three weeks. Liverpool plays at Inter Milan on Tuesday in the Champions League.
The international break saw lots of Liverpool players logging heavy minutes for their national teams.
“Maybe in the future I sometimes would love it to be a bit different,” Slot said. “It’s a positive thing that we are in such a good place that we have 10 players that can play every minute for the national team. It says a lot about the quality we have.”
Salah marked his 100th cap for Egypt with a goal in a 4-0 victory over Botswana on Tuesday in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier. In the Premier League this season, Salah is the only player to have scored three goals and provided three assists.
Harvey Elliott will be sidelined for several weeks because of a foot fracture, which Slot said is “a blow” for both the team and the midfielder.
“He would have had a lot of playing time in the upcoming fixtures,” the manager said.
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Liverpool's manager Arne Slot greets supporters at the end of the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024, in Manchester, England. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
Egypt's Mohamed Salah greets his fans before his team's Africa Cup of Nations Group C qualifying soccer match against Cape Verde in Cairo Stadium, Egypt. Friday, Sept. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)
Liverpool's Trent Alexander-Arnold celebrates their victory at the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024, in Manchester, England. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
Liverpool's Mohamed Salah, left, and Liverpool's Virgil van Dijk celebrate their victory at the English Premier League soccer match between Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford, Sunday, Sept. 1, 2024, in Manchester, England. (AP Photo/Dave Thompson)
CARACOLLO, Bolivia (AP) — Thousands of anti-government demonstrators marching in support of Bolivia’s former President Evo Morales clashed on Tuesday with counterprotesters blocking their way, a stark sign of an escalating power struggle in the volatile Andean nation.
In his most brazen show of force yet against current President Luis Arce, Morales sent word to his followers to mobilize what he called a “March to Save Bolivia,” a 190-kilometer (118 mile)-trek from the small village of Caracollo to the capital, La Paz, denouncing the government of his protege-turned-bitter rival.
Morales, a former coca grower, has retained significant support among poor and Indigenous Bolivians despite his resignation in 2019 amid mass protests over his disrupted re-election.
The march in solidarity with him began peacefully Tuesday morning, but turned violent hours later when hundreds of counterprotesters, armed with tear gas bombs, stones and firecrackers, spread across the highway waiting to confront the nearly 10,000 marchers. Some of them set a giant effigy of Morales on fire.
The Morales supporters, raising multi-colored Indigenous flags and chanting against Bolivia's economic crisis, surged toward them, using slingshots to pelt their adversaries with rocks as police in pickup trucks and on motorbikes looked on. Morales' followers soon forced the counterprotesters to retreat, their shouts — “Evo, Bolivia wants you back!” — drowning out the pro-Arce activists who chanted, “Evo, you traitor, your time has passed.”
A top official in Arce's government, Eduardo Del Castillo, told reporters that 13 people were injured in the scuffles, including three police officers. Associated Press reporters saw some pro-Morales marchers chasing the counterdemonstrators into the rolling Andean highlands on either side of the highway, beating them with sticks, pushing them to the ground and kicking them.
Arce and his ministers accused Morales of trying to orchestrate a coup. Using exaggerated, apocalyptic rhetoric, Del Castillo denounced Morales’ protest as a “death march” and said that the former president seeks “to destroy democracy in Bolivia and end the lives of Bolivians.” He denied that police used force against peaceful protesters, insisting that officers were attacked first.
Morales, for his part, claimed that the government sent plainclothes police officers to stir up trouble and vandalize protesters' vehicles, saying that Arce's government “has lost respect for human rights and laws in the country.”
The mood was largely defiant late Tuesday at a protest encampment in Panduro, in the mining state of Oruro, where the road weary marchers spent the night.
“The government is the one that sent police officers to try to stop us, but we were united and defeated them,” said Yamile Cruz, leader of Frutcas, a group of Indigenous farmers on the edge of the world’s largest salt flat. “This march will not retreat despite the government's intentions.”
Tuesday's mayhem deepened the rift at the top of Bolivia’s governing party, threatening to take the political feud between Morales and Arce into a dramatic new phase. Morales, Bolivia's first Indigenous President who oversaw the country's commodities boom from 2006 to 2019, seeks to run against Arce, his former economy minister, in next year's presidential election.
Protesters at the march Tuesday demanded that Morales be allowed on the 2025 electoral ballot despite a ruling by Bolivia’s constitutional court last year that Arce insists disqualifies him. Morales has dismissed the court resolution as politically motivated.
“They not only want to disqualify me, they want to restrict political rights,” Morales told reporters at the march. “Above all, we want the president and his government to heed our demands.”
Cracks in the governing Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, first opened in 2019, when Morales ran for an unconstitutional third term. He won a contested vote plagued by allegations of fraud, setting off mass protests that caused 36 deaths and prompted Morales to resign and flee the country. He returned and launched his political comeback after Arce, his choice candidate at the time, won the 2020 election.
The political rivalry has divided Congress and exacerbated an economic crisis stemming from the depletion of Bolivia’s foreign-exchange reserves. Protesters on Tuesday decried Arce's failure to halt the spiral and recalled Morales' tenure as one of economic growth and social uplift.
“We are suffering from hunger," said Felix Torres, a peasant protester from the highlands. “This is not how you govern.”
Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Buenos Aires, Argentina, contributed to this report.
Demonstrators carrying wiphala flags march to the capital from Caracollo, Oruro, Bolivia, led by former President Evo Morales as part of a political dispute with current President Luis Arce and to protest his handling of the economy, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Demonstrators give an offering to Mother Earth before marching to the capital, led by former President Evo Morales, as part of a political dispute with current President Luis Arce and to protest his handling of the economy in Caracollo, Oruro, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales, top, who are marching to the capital to protest the government of current President Luis Arce, are confronted by Arce supporters, below, in Vila Vila, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
An effigy of former President Evo Morales starts to burn on a road between Caracollo and La Paz, to block Morales supporters who are marching to the capital against the government of President Luis Arce in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
An effigy of former President Evo Morales is engulfed in flames on the road between Caracollo and La Paz, the route Morales' supporters are using to march to the capital against the government of President Luis Arce, in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales, who are marching to the capital to protest the government of current President Luis Arce, walk toward Arce supporters who met them along the route in Vila Vila, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales kick a government supporter whose group confronted them in Vila Vila, Bolivia, during their march to the capital, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Morales and his supporters are marching to the capital to protest the government of President Luis Arce in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales, who are marching to the capital to protest the government of current President Luis Arce, advance towards Arce supporters who met them along their route in Vila Vila, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales, one holding a sling-shot, pursue a government supporter, top right, in Vila Vila, Bolivia, as they march to the capital, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Morales and his supporters are marching to the capital to protest the government of President Luis Arce in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales march to the capital to protest against the government of current President Luis Arce in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians, in Vila Vila, Bolivia Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Former President Evo Morales, center, and his supporters march to the capital to protest against the government of current President Luis Arce, in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians, in Vila Vila, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales, who are marching to the capital to protest the government of current President Luis Arce, run towards Arce supporters who met them along the route in Vila Vila, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
A government supporter runs through tear gas during clashes with supporters of former President Evo Morales who are marching to the capital to protest the government of current President Luis Arce in Vila Vila, Bolivia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
Supporters of former President Evo Morales, kick a government supporter in Vila Vila, Bolivia, as Morales supporters march to the capital, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. Morales and his supporters are marching to the capital to protest the government of President Luis Arce in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
An effigy of former President Evo Morales burns on a road in Vila Vila, Bolivia, to block Morales supporters who are marching to the capital to protest the government of current President Luis Arce in an escalation of a political dispute between the two politicians, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Juan Karita)
