- 4 months ago
Liverpool boss Arne Slot on the story of their transfer deadline day which saw them complete the deal for Alexander Isak but miss out on Marc Guehi, the fitness of Isak and the challenges of facing Burnley in the Premier League
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Two-year-old.
00:01Morning, Arne.
00:02Morning.
00:03Are you well?
00:04I am.
00:05Good.
00:11Arne, first of all, how do you reflect on deadline day?
00:14Obviously getting a deal for Alexander Isak over the line,
00:16not getting a deal for Mark Gaye over the line,
00:18and Harvey Elliott leaving the club.
00:20Yeah, so a lot of things happened on the last day,
00:23which is not always the situation,
00:25because last season we hardly did anything during the whole window,
00:28but the thing that pleases me most of course is us getting Alex the deal from Alex over the line.
00:36Richard's ownership, everyone involved worked so hard to get that deal done,
00:41and it's very good for the club, for our fans, for the players, for me,
00:48that all the work they've put in resulted in Alex signing for us.
00:54How close were you to getting a deal for Mark Gaye over the line,
00:58and therefore what chances are there that you will go back in for him?
01:02What chances do you feel there is that he will become a Liverpool player in the next two other minutes?
01:06No, I think it would be a bit ridiculous if I'm going to deny that we were close to signing him.
01:12That is so out in the open, that would be ridiculous.
01:16These things happen in football, it happened to our players maybe in the past as well,
01:22that they thought they were so close on signing somewhere else,
01:25and then in the last moment things changed.
01:27This can happen, and for me we would have liked to sign him of course because we were in for him,
01:36and he was, like I've said many times, if we can feel we can strengthen the team with a chance in the market,
01:42we never hesitate to do so, and that's what we tried to do.
01:45But one or two days before we played Arsenal where Ibu and Virgil played an outstanding game,
01:52and Joe came in 20 minutes before the end, Joe Gomez, and did outstanding as well,
01:57with us signing Giovanni Leoni who had his first international call-up,
02:01and Ryan and Watte can play there,
02:03so it's not like all of a sudden we don't have options in that position anymore.
02:07It's a pity, not only for us but also for the player I think,
02:13but he's in a good place playing at Palace where he won the charity shield in the FA Cup,
02:20with a very good manager as well, so let's see what the future brings for him and for us.
02:26Just to push it out, would you be thinking January or next summer?
02:30If I'm thinking anything you know, but what I think I don't tell you,
02:36I don't tell you, but the thing I think most about is Burnley at the moment, I can assure you.
02:40With that in mind, how ready is Alexander Isak to play for you
02:43and make his debut against Burnley,
02:45because obviously he's got his first minutes playing for Sweden against Kosovo,
02:49but I've also got to ask you as well what you make of the criticism he's received
02:52over the way things ended at Newcastle and what kind of impact that has had on him, if anything at all.
02:58First of all, I think the Swedish manager, Jondal Thomasson,
03:04deserves a big, big, big compliment because he gets one of the best,
03:10maybe the best striker in the world in,
03:13and needs to play two very important games for his country,
03:16but understands that if he would play him twice 90 minutes
03:19then probably the player would have been injured for multiple weeks.
03:23And that's not always easy for a manager, that he takes care of the interests of a player,
03:29so he deserves a big compliment for that, and we will treat Alex the same as they did,
03:35so don't expect him to be every single game 90 minutes on the pitch,
03:39that's definitely not going to happen in the upcoming weeks.
03:42He missed a proper pre-season, I think he missed three or four months of team sessions,
03:49so now we have to build him up gradually, with us playing so many games,
03:54hardly any training time.
03:56So that's going to be a challenge, but we've signed him not only for the upcoming two weeks,
04:00we've signed him for six years, so this is what we have to keep in mind,
04:06and what the fans have to keep in mind if they see that I take him off at a certain moment
04:11or I only bring him in for a small amount of minutes,
04:14that's all for the long-term fitness of the player.
04:17And the criticism?
04:19In football there's always criticism, so sometimes people cheer for you,
04:25so I think after he won the League Cup everyone was really happy with him,
04:30and in other moments you get criticised,
04:33this is part of his life, my life, our jobs,
04:37and now he's a player from us, and I'm really happy with that.
04:42So you mentioned Harvey as well, just obviously, deadline day, Harvey.
04:46Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another positive thing, I think, not only Harvey,
04:54but if I look at Luis Diaz, how he hit the ground running at Bayern Munich
04:58is a big, big, big compliment for our performance staff
05:01and the people that work in this building.
05:03So every time a player leaves, Tyler Morton does really well at Olympique Lyon,
05:07so that tells you how we bring players to other clubs,
05:11and Harvey is in a very good place, going to a very nice club,
05:15with Aston Villa, I think it's in the interest of everyone,
05:20he didn't get the playing time he probably deserved for the quality player he is,
05:25and he conducted himself always so well,
05:28so it wasn't only when he said that this was his club
05:31that he wanted to say this to the fans,
05:33he acted inside with him not playing so much,
05:35but he was always doing what was in the best interest of the club,
05:39so he deserves a big compliment for that.
05:42I know everybody always talks about Mo and Virgil and the others if we win the league,
05:47but players like him were definitely also the reason why we could win it,
05:52because he always was positive and if he had to play five or ten minutes,
05:56he helped the team in every session he did,
05:58and that is partly the success of a team,
06:01that the ones that don't play that much have the right mindset,
06:04and I think he's completely ready now to show the quality he has at Aston Villa.
06:10Arna, when you look at what ESAC brings to the club,
06:14aligned with Mo and Akatike and Verts and Gappo,
06:17do you feel now you've got a core and variety in your squad to change games should you need to?
06:23Yes, I do feel, but if the question is,
06:28is that the first time since you're Liverpool manager,
06:30then the answer is no,
06:31because last season I could change games around with Djogo, with Darwin, with Lucio,
06:37with those three players that are not one for the reasons we all know,
06:44the other two that were sold.
06:46So that is what a club like Liverpool, what Jurgen probably could do in the past as well,
06:51this is normal at our club that we have multiple options
06:54and that we can change the game if necessary.
06:56Looking ahead to this weekend,
06:58granted players only just coming back from international duty,
07:01do you have a relatively clean bill of health, how are you shaping up this weekend?
07:05Yes, the players are fit, yes, I think they are.
07:09We trained today for the first time with them, with most of them,
07:13the non-internationals did train with the Inter21s this week already.
07:18Curtis Jones, of course, I don't know if you knew, but he got injured in the last game,
07:23so he will not be available for the game against Burnley,
07:27but I think the rest of them all came back without a problem,
07:33and that's not always the situation, especially at the beginning of the season
07:39where everybody comes from a different background,
07:42going to the national team where they all of a sudden have to play two games in four or five days,
07:47which is always the biggest risk in November and October and in March,
07:50they are much more used to that programme.
07:53So we are happy that they are fit.
07:55And again, a compliment not only for the Swedish manager but also for the others,
08:01because a few others like Ryan Gravenberg only started one game and not both of them.
08:06And in terms of Burnley, obviously they got promoted last season,
08:09Scott Park has developed a team with a reputation for being defensively solid.
08:12What do you expect this weekend, how will you need to approach it?
08:16Defensively solid, but I don't give them enough credits if I only talk about that,
08:22because the first goal they scored against Sunderland was a great team goal.
08:27So, good team, but yeah, like all the others, we know...
08:32My experience from last season is when the teams that were relegated now,
08:36so I replaced them for the ones that promoted, we had problems at Ipswich,
08:41we had problems at Leicester, and we had problems at Southampton,
08:46and problems with we only wanted in the end phase of the game.
08:50So, yeah, we know that every game is difficult,
08:57and I only have to look back at last season to understand that.
09:01Best of luck.
09:03Arna, we're obviously very familiar with what Alexander Isak can do on the pitch,
09:07but from your interactions with him, what do you make of his characteristics?
09:10As a person, Newcastle is able to separate the emotion in a really focused way.
09:19Do you think that's maybe even helped him across the summer,
09:21and is that anything that you see?
09:23Yeah, maybe people don't believe me if I give you this answer,
09:26but I haven't spoken to him that much.
09:28So I spoke to him after he signed by phone, because he had to go to the national team.
09:35And the way I, 99-100 times, treat my players during international breaks
09:40is I leave them for the manager that they are working with over there,
09:45so I text him maybe now once or twice because he's new to us and wanted to know how he did.
09:51But I do have to get to know him as a person much better in the upcoming days and weeks.
09:57But although we find it very important how someone is,
10:03because we have such a great culture here at this club,
10:06we mainly sign a player also for his qualities,
10:09and therefore I don't need to call him.
10:11We've faced him a few times, I've faced him a few times,
10:15and I know what a quality player he is.
10:20And with how the deals worked out, getting done for Isak on deadline day,
10:24but not for Gaghi, do you see any changes in modern football now
10:28where for players to truly get what they want they might have to take things upon themselves,
10:33or do you think they were just individual circumstances?
10:36The last one, I think.
10:38I don't think you can compare any situation with another.
10:42Different ownership, different situation.
10:45I think you cannot compare these.
10:50I'm really happy that Alex signed for us,
10:52because I did feel all the way that we needed an attacking player extra,
10:59and I'm so happy that we could bring in the one we wanted from the start.
11:07Your first defeat last season came straight after the first international break,
11:11against Nottingham Forest.
11:13I just wonder if there was anything from the circumstances last season
11:17that have helped you prepare for the first game after the international break this time around?
11:21No, if there's anything I've learned from that,
11:27then we implemented that already last season,
11:29and I think it was the only time that we lost a game after the international break.
11:33But it's always difficult, you never know what is exactly the reason.
11:38At that moment of time I was maybe a bit focused on the first one after the international break,
11:43but looking at the season Forest had after that,
11:47I think it has much more to do with their quality than it had to do with the first game after the international break.
11:53And I just wondered how Chiesa has reacted to not being selected in the Champions League squad?
12:00Of course, that is one of the most difficult things you have to do as a manager.
12:06For a player not to play it's not always easy to tell him,
12:08but not to be in the squad is always more difficult.
12:10And I just explained to him why we made this choice,
12:16and of course he wasn't happy with that,
12:19but I think he understood my arguments,
12:22that's not to say that he agreed with them,
12:24but he didn't tell me by the way that he didn't agree with them,
12:27but he gave the answer that you want to hear from a player
12:31that he will be there to help the team in the Cups and in the league,
12:37and that's one thing to say,
12:40but I think he also showed this because he wasn't selected,
12:43but he worked really hard these days to be ready for the upcoming games,
12:48and that is even more important than what a player tells you.
12:56You've scored more goals than any other team in the league this season,
12:59without creating a massive amount of high-value chances,
13:02if you look at the expected goals average,
13:04I think it's just over one a game.
13:06Against a team like Burnley, who appear to be happy to concede possession,
13:11how do you make sure that your time on the ball is as efficient as it can be?
13:15Ah, yeah, to implement as best as possible the way we want to play,
13:21but in the end the final third is mainly for,
13:25OK, we do certain patterns, that's also clear,
13:28but it's also a form of the day of our wingers mainly,
13:33because you end up, because of their playing style mostly on the side,
13:37so the better they are, the bigger threat they are,
13:40the more chances we will generate,
13:42and then it's nine or ten times also about the score,
13:44because if you can score an early goal that normally helps you in a game like that,
13:49and if you don't, or even worse, you concede a goal in the beginning,
13:54that gives even more energy to the other team.
13:56So there are so many factors going into a game like that,
13:59but as always we are hoping that our attackers can make the difference,
14:04and that's what they have to do every single game, attackingly,
14:08but not only attackingly, because if we lose the ball
14:11and we're really good in our counter-pressing that can generate chances as well.
14:15So yeah, that is for me the biggest lesson of our game against Arsenal there,
14:21where in the first half we weren't front-footed enough in terms of our pressing,
14:25and in the second half we were, I think Arsenal were front-footed in the first half
14:30in terms of their pressing,
14:32we were there in the second half,
14:34and as a result of that I think we deserved to score the goal in the second half,
14:38because we already scored one which was fractionally offside,
14:41and we were getting closer and closer,
14:44and in the end I think we even deserved to score that goal based on the second half,
14:48not based on the first half.
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