Liverpool boss Arne Slot insisted he has not been affected by speculation over the futures of Mohamed Salah, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Virgil van Dijk.

The trio are all out of contract at the end of the season.

Salah has been the Premier League's standout player this season, providing 44 goal contributions in the top flight. 

He is just three goal contributions short of matching the competition's single-season record, which is shared by Alan Shearer and Andrew Cole (47).

Van Dijk, meanwhile, has been imperious in defence, while Alexander-Arnold has registered more expected assists (6.72) than any other defender in the league this season.

"It's a situation that is there for eight or nine months now," said Slot when asked if he had been impacted by the speculation over the trio's future.

"These three players have performed so well under these circumstances. So no, it does not affect me at all."

Over the recent international break, Alexander-Arnold was heavily linked with a move to Real Madrid.

The full-back missed Liverpool's defeat to Newcastle United in the EFL Cup final due to injury, and will not be fit to feature against Everton on Wednesday.

"His situation is that unfortunately he is injured," said Slot of Alexander-Arnold.

"Otherwise, people probably would have spoken about him having one or two brilliant performances for the England team.

"But he is injured, so for him he is fully focused on his recovery and for us we are trying to help him to be back as early as he can."

Liverpool are 12 points clear at the top of the Premier League, though that gap could be reduced to nine if Arsenal beat Fulham on Tuesday.

The Reds, who were knocked out of the Champions League last month, are handed a 98.8% chance of winning the title by Opta's supercomputer.

"Everybody can understand the position we are in at the moment, that we are all looking so much forward to the upcoming nine games," said Slot.

"Players are refreshed, in my opinion, but it wasn't all negative: we've played a final, so we've managed to play a final against a very good Newcastle team. And we had one great game and in the other game we defended really well against Paris Saint-Germain, which was the best game in the Champions League so far in my opinion.

"We got beaten by a very, very, very good team, but what a game we played as well. You can always look at the result, which was not the way we wanted in the two games, but I was proud of our performance against PSG. It was maybe the best game we've played this season, but unfortunately we lost it on penalties."