- 9 months ago
Liverpool boss Arne Slot on their recent poor form and the need to bounce back against Aston Villa in the Premier League
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Yeah, you can. Ryan trained with us yesterday, and the other two I didn't yet.
00:12Yeah, as I said many times, in the end phase of the injury, things can go slow down a bit,
00:21things can go faster. Let's wait and see where they are. But like I said,
00:26Ryan trained with us for the first time yesterday, will train with us today,
00:30and then we're going to make the call if he can, if he's able to start, yes or no.
00:34The other two are probably 99.9% sure not in the squad Saturday.
00:43You talked about squad depth after the game against Crystal Palace.
00:49What is it you think you're missing? What do you think that you need?
00:52We missed nothing, so I'm happy that you asked this question.
00:54I'm completely happy with the team, with all the quality we have,
00:58and I'm also completely convinced by the strategy and the policy we have.
01:03But that makes it the issue, if you could talk about an issue,
01:09is that not all of them have had a proper preseason or have been injured during the season.
01:16So then when three or four are injured, you go back to 16 players.
01:19So I am a firm believer in the fact that 20-21 players are enough.
01:23But you have to keep them fit, as we did last season.
01:26And we are struggling a bit more to keep them fit for, in my opinion, obvious reasons.
01:31Because Alex is a great example of this.
01:35It came to us, I think, the 1st of September.
01:37A few others have missed out in preseason.
01:40A few others have had their injuries in preseason.
01:43So it has been more difficult than last season to keep them all available.
01:47And if then a few of them are not available, then it comes down a lot towards the same players.
01:54And maybe last season we were more lucky, or now we are a bit more unlucky.
01:59Again, no excuses for our results before people are going to say this again.
02:03But we had to play a lot of away games with only two days rest in between.
02:08And that would have been a difficult schedule for every player last season.
02:13And I mean a player that has been fit throughout preseason, throughout the whole season.
02:16But that has not been our situation.
02:18And then I think you have to manage it because the upcoming week is again free in seven or eight days.
02:26So it has nothing to do with the squad depth.
02:28It has to do with how we've went through the season in terms of injuries and availability.
02:36And players are available to play every single time two games in three days.
02:42Finally for me, there's been a lot of speculation about contract negotiations for you.
02:46Are there talks ongoing?
02:47Can you tell us?
02:50That was the last question I was expecting.
02:55I think my focus could be completely on getting Liverpool back on winning ways.
03:00And that's my first answer.
03:03And the second answer is that contract talks, if they are even there, we never speak about this here.
03:11But let us first start to win again.
03:16That's where my main focus is on.
03:20Anna, you mentioned there about the injuries that your team is suffering with and have suffered with across the first few weeks of the season.
03:28And the fact that the schedule is as demanding as it ever is.
03:32With the issues that you've got at the moment, how are you going about trying to solve these problems?
03:37How difficult is it to solve them in season with the injuries and with the number of games that you've got as well?
03:43Just handling the situation as it is.
03:47So, Alex, let me use Alex as an example.
03:53He had to do his preseason inside the season.
03:57And people can then argue, why do you play him?
03:58But yeah, if I don't play him, I don't have him available.
04:00And we need to have him available because otherwise I have to play Hugo every single game.
04:05And I was just with Owen Hargreaves when he made the comparison between the two of them.
04:09And he showed that the both of them, for another reason, by the way, but he showed me over there that both of them played.
04:16One played 34 games last season, the other one 34.
04:19And we play 60 over here.
04:21So that's why I need to get Alex as soon as I can into playing as many games as he can.
04:28And that has been something not only with him but with a few others as well.
04:35So Jeremy Flingpong has been in and out with injuries quite a few times.
04:39Same with Conor Bradley.
04:40So if one is out, the other one has to play more.
04:42That's why I've played maybe also Dominic Soboslai a few times in that position.
04:46So that has been something what every team, by the way, has.
04:54So it's, again, not an excuse for us because every team works with this.
04:57But what was a bit different than, for example, for me last season is that last season they all had one year Premier League experience as a minimum.
05:09And they were all fit when we started and they stayed fit.
05:12And now they weren't all fit from the start.
05:14And then some players have to play maybe even more than you want them to do, which is a risk for them getting injured as well.
05:23But it's just a situation as it is.
05:25And we have still more than enough good players available to play the game on Saturday, to play the game on Tuesday and to play the game on Sunday.
05:32But I have to take care of a few of them and that's why I made the decision not to play seven or eight players two days ago.
05:42When you look at the run of results you've had – I know you've never had a run like this in your career before – how was you learning about yourself and your capabilities as a manager to adapt to this sort of situation and deal with all these problems that we're talking about?
05:57Well, maybe learning comes then a little bit later because now you're mainly focused on how can I change and you always evaluate the decisions you've made, the choices you've made or the things you've done afterwards.
06:12And my focus is now not so much on trying to look back on what has happened but more on how can we get a very good performance on Saturday.
06:21And so, yeah, maybe the learning part is going to come a little bit later but for now the focus is on the future and is on how can we get a good result or at least a good performance against Villa because normally a good performance from this quality players leads to a good result.
06:44One of the key factors do you think that are going to help you arrest this recent poor run of results, 60 feets in seven games, and what's the key to getting the best out of the player to get?
06:58I know there have been elements of misfortune in that run but there have been occasions, I know last week was the first time that you said you were really disappointed in the performance.
07:07Yeah, yeah, for 60 minutes, yes. 30 minutes was okay but 60 minutes was, I think first half against Palace was also similar to that 60 minutes I was talking about.
07:19Yeah, the thing that gives me the most confidence is the quality of the players we are having.
07:23So, and the amount of chances these players are still creating, so this will eventually always lead to these players scoring more goals than we've done till now.
07:35And we have to address certain other things, but yeah, if I talk about that, if I'm speaking about what we have to improve people, then tell me I'm using excuses.
07:46So maybe it's better now just to say we need to address certain things to do better.
07:51But there are a lot of positives to go into this week as well.
07:56Like I just said, quality of the players is the first and foremost, and the amount of chances we create from open play is still good enough to compete for the positions we want to compete for.
08:12I know one of the things I'm sure you want to address is maybe the lack of physicality in elements of, in times of some of the recent matches, particularly last week.
08:23Obviously the players are trying to win their battles.
08:27On occasions, is it down to sort of a lack of confidence that sort of, you know, because things are going wrong, one thing leads to another?
08:34But because that can be a really important part, but it is a really important part of the game.
08:40Yeah, no, it gets more and more important in every Premier League game, let alone in games of ours.
08:46It's never helpful if you end the game of football against United with conceding a set-piece and you start another one in the Premier League and you concede after five minutes of throw-in from a set-piece.
08:57But I think, not 100% sure if I'm correct, we had to defend 16 set-pieces.
09:05And 15 we defended well.
09:07But, yeah, we are at this moment in a time where 15 isn't enough because we conceded 16.
09:13And the first one, someone said to me, who worked in a completely different department, but he said,
09:25no plan survives a first contact.
09:28And that is also a little bit what makes it difficult if you are five minutes in the game and you're 1-0 down.
09:35That is never helpful for confidence and for the plan you're having.
09:40But, like I said, if I liked a little part of the game, it was the part after we conceded the 1-0,
09:47because at that moment of time we were creative, we created our chances.
09:51But we couldn't score and then in the last 10 minutes it became more of their game again.
09:57And eventually the way we conceded the 2-0, yeah, that is something that is far from our standards.
10:04Hi, Arne. There's been a lot of discussion in the last few weeks about long balls and then a discussion about your discussion of long balls.
10:13The next two opponents in the Premier League, Aston Villa and Man City, play less long balls than anyone else in the league.
10:19So, do you think that this might help you impose your game on those teams?
10:24Or do you think maybe those teams will try and adapt their game to try and focus on what could be its team in the league?
10:31No, they're also really good at that.
10:33So, Chelsea played their own game against us.
10:38They brought the ball out from the back as well and we didn't win that one as well.
10:41So, again, when people ask me after the game why was it difficult, I try to explain why it was difficult.
10:48And if the question is why it was difficult, I answer the question why it was difficult.
10:53People don't ask me, can you come up with excuses?
10:55And then I give an answer.
10:57So, I try to explain why it was difficult and I did this only for the first time after United because the games before that I felt would be stupid to tell so
11:05because I'm not 100% sure if everybody is already noticing what we are seeing.
11:09Then I underestimate a lot of analysts throughout the country.
11:12But if it happens after the 10th game and nine of them were so much focus on long balls, then I think it's fair to say for me,
11:21if you ask me the question why is it difficult, to say this without opening the eyes of upcoming opponents.
11:29These two teams we face now indeed bring the ball more out of the back.
11:34But they're also really good in it.
11:37So, I think City is a high-pressing team.
11:40We're really good in the high-pressing.
11:43But I did see Vela being able to play through that multiple times.
11:47And if I'm 100% correct, I think I am.
11:50They won the game by a set-piece.
11:52Yeah.
11:52So, another time the importance of a set-piece.
11:57It does go against my beliefs, but I've won games in the past, so we're talking about City away.
12:25That went maybe against my beliefs, but it was necessary to play it over there like that in the second half.
12:31So, I would be more than open to adapt in certain situations.
12:36But I don't think the story is, at least in my opinion, is that we can see chance after chance after chance.
12:42And that we are too open, or that it's actually absolutely not like this.
12:48Every single game, maybe apart from Palace, because in the first half we could have been 2-0 or 3-0 down.
12:55And maybe the Brentford game, I think all the other games we deserved much more than we got.
12:59And we hardly conceded a chance.
13:03Even this week, with the team I put out, which played for the first time together, I think they only conceded three big chances.
13:11Unfortunately, all three went in.
13:13But that's because they were big.
13:15And that there weren't chances, there were big chances.
13:17So, I don't see us conceding a lot of chances, so I don't see a reason to change our playing style completely.
13:28But, yeah, we need to do better in not conceding goals, that's for sure.
13:35Michael, last one.
13:36It's also a sign that it's better to do it the way they did it than the way we did it.
14:00So, if you don't win in the beginning, people are like,
14:02maybe they don't have the same team as last season or whatever,
14:07and then they start to win and then everything is very positive again.
14:10We're with us.
14:11I think it's exactly the opposite.
14:14But we're both on the same points.
14:16And apart from Arsenal, I think many teams are in and around the same points.
14:21So, again, it tells you also how hard the Premier League is.
14:24And, yeah, they've done very well in the last five, six, seven or eight games.
14:32And that didn't come as a surprise, because even in the games they've lost before,
14:37you could already see the signs that they are a very good team and their playing style is really good.
14:42And normally, normally, normally, although with us the run is already quite long,
14:46you don't every time lose a game of football where you create more chances than the other team.
14:51But, yeah, they decided not to make a habit out of that.
14:56And let's hope we decide not to make a habit out of having more chances than the opponent but not win it.
15:03I'll see you for the next time.
15:06You
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