- 4 months ago
Arne Slot on Leoni injury latest ahead of Liverpool's trip to Crystal Palace
26/09/2025
AXA Training centre, Liverpool, UK
26/09/2025
AXA Training centre, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Just to check first of all, how is Giovanni Leone, what's the prognosis there?
00:04And on the flip side of the disappointment for him,
00:07does it also open up a place in the Champions League squad for Federico Chiesa now?
00:11Yeah, that last thing is true.
00:13And the first thing, he's not in a good place, of course,
00:18because he tore his ACL, which means that he will be out for around a year.
00:24So being so young, coming to a new country,
00:28playing so well in your first game,
00:31it's very hard to take the positive side.
00:34No, there's never a positive side, but you always try to look at a positive side,
00:37and that is that he's still so young,
00:39so that he has so many years still to go after he recovers from a terrible injury like that.
00:48How much of a blow is it for you?
00:50I know you're talking about the human being there, but also squad-wise,
00:53because you faced Crystal Palace this weekend,
00:55and I suppose with Mark Gay lining up on their side,
00:58there might be a sense of what might have been given what happened on transfer deadline day.
01:03Yeah, but I don't think one day before we play them to talk about that again.
01:10He's a Crystal Palace player, and he's been very important for them as long as he's there.
01:15So we have to prepare for Crystal Palace, who are a very good team.
01:20I think they haven't lost 17 games in a row now, and he's part of that team.
01:25So, difficult team to beat, but we are also a difficult team to beat,
01:30as we've shown when we played against each other,
01:33because we've beaten them once with 1-0, and twice it was a draw.
01:37And we have more than enough options to replace, if needed, a player at the centre-back position,
01:48because, of course, we've got Virgil, Joe and Ibu, and other options, if needed.
01:54Is Alexander Isak ready to start now, obviously thinking with no Hugh Gercutique in particular?
02:00Yeah, he's able to break minutes again.
02:03I still feel 90 depends also on the pace and intensity of the game,
02:09but that might be a bit too much.
02:12But not only that, also for the long term,
02:14so you can give a player maybe one, I would call stupid hit,
02:18to bring him to 90, and then his body is completely,
02:21you brought him too far over the line,
02:23so I don't think it's smart to play him 90 yet.
02:26But, yeah, he's further into his pre-season now,
02:30and normally after two or three weeks in pre-season,
02:33players go to 60, 70 minutes,
02:36and in some clubs they even bring them to 90,
02:39but if you look at our pre-season we mainly bring them to 60 to 70 minutes.
02:43Just check on Hugo as well,
02:45because there's been a report that he's been disciplined over his sending off through the night,
02:49has he been fine or anything like that?
02:52No, discipline means that I spoke to him,
02:55then it's disciplined, but I don't think that it's disciplined,
02:57so discipline means fine and that he didn't get.
03:00So it wasn't very smart what he did,
03:05what he recognised himself immediately straight away,
03:09so he said sorry straight away to his teammates.
03:12And he's young, players of all ages do make mistakes,
03:18and that's what he did in this situation as well,
03:21but we all make mistakes,
03:23and you're allowed at this club to make a mistake
03:27without immediately getting fines or these kind of things.
03:30He's a fantastic human being,
03:32I think if you talk to all the staff members
03:34and you would ask them a top three of the warmest persons
03:38and the most polite persons,
03:40I think he's in every staff member's top three.
03:42So even if he wasn't a person like this,
03:45he was able to make a mistake,
03:47but he wasn't smart,
03:50it didn't hurt us Tuesday evening,
03:54it might hurt us a bit more tomorrow.
03:57The positive thing is that Federico Chiesa showed
03:59that he is showing himself at the moment,
04:04so it's also a chance for him now to be on the bench
04:08and maybe he kept playing minutes with Hugo not being there.
04:13Your next point that you pick up
04:16will be your 100th Premier League points for Liverpool.
04:21If you do it in the next four games,
04:23you'll be the fastest thing in club history
04:25to have done that in your first whatever matches.
04:28So what do you think that maybe you've learnt
04:31over the previous 99 points here at the club?
04:34What did I have learnt?
04:40I think a lot.
04:43This has nothing to do with your question,
04:45but one of my frustrations is that –
04:47I don't know if it's the same in England, by the way,
04:49but we as managers, we have to get points
04:52to keep having our badge, is that the way you say it?
04:56So to stay a manager.
04:58In Holland you need – every three years you need to do some schooling.
05:02Do some schooling, is that the right word?
05:05Education, yeah.
05:06To stay a manager.
05:08I find this ridiculous because I learn every single day.
05:12I improve every single day.
05:13I don't need to go to a course to learn if you are working.
05:17So I don't know if it's the same in England,
05:20but every three years we need to do this.
05:23Otherwise you cannot stay.
05:26You need badges here as well, yeah.
05:28Yeah, but if you've done it, do you need to every time educate the refreshing courses?
05:32Yeah.
05:33Now, for me every day is a refreshing course,
05:36so I'm a bit surprised that we need to do this.
05:40So, yeah, yes, I've learned a lot, but not only here at Feyenoord and at Alkmaar as well.
05:46I cannot come up with one specific thing, maybe, what I've learned,
05:50but if you have to make every single day 10, 15, 20 choices,
05:54not all of them are good.
05:57Definitely not.
05:58So you learn every single day, and I cannot come up with one specific thing.
06:03So Crystal Palace again, and you'll see them again in the Cap of our Cup soon also.
06:08You're the only two teams that are unbeaten in the Premier League this season.
06:13What is the biggest threat that they have against stopping Liverpool continuing that month?
06:19Discipline.
06:20They have an enormous discipline defensively.
06:24Ten outfield players plus a goalkeeper that worked so hard to prevent the other team from scoring.
06:34And we saw this also in the charity shield, even the moments when we were up,
06:40they could still be very disciplined and calm in their own half in their mid-to-low block.
06:46And we saw this during the week when we played Southampton who were disciplined against us,
06:53how hard it is to play through them.
06:58And apart from that, but that's for every team in the Premier League,
07:02they have some individual qualities, some individual players who are a big threat offensively.
07:08Mateta is one of them.
07:10Asar, who wasn't available last week but might be available this week again,
07:14was really good against us in the charity shield.
07:16Two midfielders that know how to play.
07:18Yeah, and good centre-back, good wing-backs.
07:22So a good team, but that is what I would say every Premier League team has,
07:27but what maybe stands out for me with them is their discipline in their defensive work.
07:34You're looking to keep your perfect start to the Premier League season intact.
07:39Has it taken even you by surprise in what you put it down to?
07:44Surprise is maybe a bit too strong to say, but if you would have asked me that after playing Newcastle away,
07:50Arsenal at home and all these difficult games we had that we would have the maximum result,
07:54I would have probably told you that I would sign for that straight away, which is normal.
08:00But if you look at the games, most of them were quite close,
08:05so we might have been a bit lucky as well to get the maximum points.
08:10Although, I was just saying about the work rate of Palace, we work incredibly hard as well,
08:15and if you work as hard as we do you give yourself the chance maybe to be a bit lucky,
08:19if you would call it luck-down.
08:21I don't think we stole a win, it wasn't as if we totally not deserved it,
08:27but there were games that a draw would have been maybe more fair.
08:30So, yeah, looking at the schedule we had, I'm more than pleased that we have the maximum points.
08:37And Mjolngeberg with his first contract as well, he's still so young at 17,
08:42do you have to work about keeping expectations down or are you just happy to let him go for it?
08:48No, the good thing is if you are a youngster playing at Liverpool,
08:51there are players where you are playing with who are still better than you are,
08:55and that I think helps to stay grounded and to know there are still steps to make
09:00if you are playing at maybe a club of a lower level and you are that good as Rio,
09:06you maybe belong straight away to the best players of the team,
09:09and that can lead to maybe a situation where he's not as grounded as he should be,
09:15but here that's not a problem at all.
09:17First of all because of who he is, he's a player that constantly wants to improve,
09:21but if you train and play with other wingers like Cody Kakpo and Mo Salah and Federico Kiesa and all the others,
09:30then I think he feels that there's still a step to make.
09:35First of all to get to their level, and if he is at their level, then it's about being as consistent as these players are.
09:44And that is the most difficult thing.
09:47To become really good is something a lot of players maybe can do,
09:51but to become consistently really good is why the top players stand out.
09:57Just on Giovanni, how important are people like Virgil and Joe Gomez both suffering the same injury earlier on in their career,
10:10and how important they can be in terms of rehab and also as an example for him of it feels like the end of the world at the minute,
10:16but you can come back just as good as you were before?
10:19Yeah.
10:20I think that last thing definitely helps, and we have some examples of that with Virgil and Joe,
10:25and there are a lot of examples all around the world.
10:28That's why I said the positive thing is that he's still 18,
10:31so he has still a lot of time to go if you get an injury like that when you are close to your retirement.
10:36It makes it much more difficult maybe, but in both situations it's far from ideal.
10:42I think the main and most important thing is the surgeons who are going to do the surgery,
10:46then second of all the ones that do the recovery, the rehab with him.
10:50But then it's always nice if you can do this in a surrounding with players that have lived through this as well,
10:58they can give you the right energy maybe in certain moments,
11:02and I think our players already showed in the last two days a lot of compassion towards him,
11:09and they will not stop doing that in the upcoming year.
11:13You mentioned the start about Federico Keyes possibly coming into the Champions League squad,
11:19is that something you have looked into and started that process perhaps?
11:23Yeah, we've looked into this, I don't know, I cannot tell you exactly where that process is at the moment,
11:28do you know? You're not sure as well.
11:30So that is not something I do myself, that are the people doing this.
11:36But if I'm informed correctly, if a player has a longer than two-month injury,
11:43you are able to replace him, that's what they've told me,
11:46and now we have to see if it's true or not, but other people are looking into that.
11:51You've spoken before about Crystal Palace and how hard they work to stop other teams' scoring goals,
11:56I think they've only conceded three in their eight games in all competitions this season.
12:00How much confidence do you take from your scoring record in the Premier League?
12:04I think it's 39 consecutive games, and not only that, 11 different scorers already this season,
12:09so you've got attacking weapons all over the pitch.
12:12Yeah, we do, but even we find it very hard to score goals against them.
12:17In the three games we've played them twice, we only scored one goal,
12:21and one time that was enough for the win, and once we scored two, but they scored two as well.
12:26So it's a difficult team to score goals against.
12:32The good thing for us is, if you tell me now that they've probably kept a few clean sheets in as well,
12:37if they only conceded three, that we were till now able to score against them,
12:42but they've improved, especially compared to the first time we played them,
12:47that was the beginning of last season.
12:49Yeah, we have, that's true, players that can score goals, we have the quality as a team to create chances for our front three players or front four players.
13:04But, yeah, it's because of the way they play, the way they line up with a 5-2-3 or whatever you want to call it, 5-4-1.
13:16It's not easy to create, and that's why when we create, it would be smarter than to score as soon as we can.
13:26It could be another late goal, but you've got to have patience against a team working as hard as they are to stop the opponents from scoring goals.
13:33Yeah, but you can only score a winner in the end if you worked as hard as we always do
13:38to prevent the other team from scoring as well, because otherwise you're already 2-0 down.
13:42Because you do see teams that attack a lot, that get frustrated a bit, and then in transition don't spin back as hard as we do.
13:51But we just keep working and keep understanding that we can still win the game in the end as long as it's 10-0-0 or 1-1 or 2-2.
14:01And therefore we work really hard, and that is one of our strengths, and that's what we have to bring to every game,
14:06especially if we face Crystal Palace, who are a big threat on the counter-attack,
14:11because they are so disciplined in defence and then they come in transitions really fast,
14:15and they are a big threat in set-pieces as well.
14:17So two things we have to be really ready for.
14:23Thanks, Anna.
14:24You're welcome.
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