Arne Slot held his press conference on Thursday ahead of trip to Manchester City over the weekend, where he confirmed Cody Gakpo is in contention to return at the Etihad Stadium.

has missed the Reds' last two games due to injury and Slot said "it will be a close call" when asked whether his compatriot would be available to return on Sunday.

Conor Bradley, meanwhile, is set to miss the games against City and Newcastle after coming off with an injury against Aston Villa. See what else Slot had to say during his press conference below...

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On Arsenal putting the pressure on in the title race

"The biggest question to be asked is from Man City. We face a strong team again. Arsenal plays before us this weekend but that doesn't make our game more easy or more difficult. We have 12 games to play, Arsenal has 13 games to play. If we constantly looked at Arsenal, that would not help us. We know how difficult it is to play at the Etihad."

Expectations from City this weekend

"A great football team that can play so well. They've had one or two months in the seven or eight years Pep's been there that weren't the best. They've signed three or four players already. You have to suffer against City and work really hard to keep them away from your goal because they are so strong in possession, but they will face a strong team as well."

On Nunez's miss vs Aston Villa

"I can accept every miss, especially from a player who has scored two very important goals against Brentford, and at home against Villa. I would prefer him to score, but the word chance says it all — it's a chance, so it's not 100 per cent sure that the ball goes in and players miss. I can accept the miss, but what is harder to accept is his behavior after that chance. It got too much in his head where he wasn't the usual Darwin that worked his ass off and helped the team, he was too disappointed.

"And maybe that's why he was just a fraction short the moment afterwards. I truly believe that it's the best to have [Wataru] Endo's mindset: he keeps on going and whenever we need him, he is ready. That is very difficult, there are not many players that can do this. It's not about the chance for me, it's more about the 20 minutes afterwards the mindset where I want to talk to him about."

Why is City's form slowly improving after awful period?

"Players available, the style of play has always been the same, that's what I like from every manager. That is what we've seen in the period of time where they dropped points, even he needs quality players to get results, and if so many players are out, as you've seen with Postecoglou, if you only have 12 players to play with in this league it's so hard. Now with players being back, it's the same style of play but the results are better."

What is Slot learning about the team during the run-in?

"I see mostly the same things, so these players are able to see every three days to the best of their capabilities. As you saw yesterday again, I'll use Szoboszlai as an example — what a work rate for his third game in a row. Until the last seconds he kept running up and down, that's all I can ask for. We were unlucky not to score our chances, that's football. We can't accept that they don't give maximum effort, but that's what they constantly do, and I assume they will do that on Sunday as well. We face difficult opponents recently, but we have to accept the fixtures. The good thing is we are still top, and that is the good thing."

Will Gakpo be back vs City?

"I hope. I'm not 100 per cent sure because he has not trained with the team yet. It will be a close call."

Is Villa game good preparation for City due to similar styles of play?

"If we play a team like Wolves, we hardly concede a chance and we hardly concede an attack, but if we play Villa, people say, 'ooh, it was quite open and it didn't look as though you defended as well as other games'. Every style of play brings challenges, and yes we took the ball off them to score the goal, but then they had a very good attack when they scored their second goal. I think people generally prefer a game of football that we saw yesterday, even if you were a neutral. I think people enjoyed watching that game, and I don't think many people enjoyed watching the Wolves game."

Gravenberch dip in form?

"There are only a few players in the world that can be a 9 or a 10 [out of 10] every three days. He might eventually belong to that group of players, but he's not there yet which is completely normal. I liked him yesterday much more than I liked him against Everton."

Conor Bradley injury/more team news vs City

"No he (Bradley) still has to come in. We don't know yet but I will be surprised if he is involved against City or Newcastle, so you can assume that's not going to happen. Joe Gomez had surgery on his hamstring and will be back maybe before the end of the season. Jota and Trent also don't play 90 minutes because they have just come back from injuries."

On making sure Nunez's spirit doesn't dip

"I will tell him how important he is, but the most important message is you can miss a chance, but you can't miss out on work rate. That's a more important message. He will have missed a few chances in his career, and he will have scored a few as well. It's part of the job of a No.9, part of your life where you sometimes miss when people expect you to score, but it's not part of your job to slow down in work rate and that is something we will talk about."

On Jota

"He gave a great assist [against Villa], so it maybe tells you more how disappointed I am that we missed him for several months. When he was with us before getting injured, he was involved in a lot of goals. It has been a miss not to have him. I would love to play him for 90 minutes every time but he has been in and out. I hope people understand why we are so cautious now. I see how much of a threat he is, and we have to keep him available. That is not an easy balance to find. I would have loved to keep him and Trent on yesterday because they played so well against Villa, but it's a big injury risk to keep him in the team.

"When I was driving up, I was listening to talkSPORT and I don't know who he is, but I think his name was Mark Lawrenson or something. He simply couldn't understand that I took Trent off — which I understand from his perspective because he played so well and scored a goal. Jota and Trent have just come back from injury. And that is why they don't play 90 minutes, five times in a row in 15 days: that would be a big risk."

On Alexander-Arnold being taken off against Villa

"We spoke about this already a week ago. These five games, he already knows how many minutes he would make. That was in a situation where Conor was available as well, so now we maybe have to adjust that plan. I said to him, 'you know why I take you off, don't you?' and he said. 'yeah, yeah, yeah we spoke about it'. Of course as a player he had adrenaline and had just scored, it was a better moment than when he lost the ball against Wolves just before I took him off, so he's improving!"