- 2 days ago
Liverpool boss Arne Slot on his third choice goalkeeper Freddie Woodman starting and the threat posed by Crystal Palace
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:02And then I had to miss out on you, and if there's ever a time I would like to see
00:06you...
00:08OK.
00:13Arne, can we just check on the goalkeeping situation?
00:16Ali, Mamed Ashvili, any chance of either of them being available this weekend?
00:21No, no, Joshi will definitely not be available for tomorrow
00:25and also not for the upcoming weeks.
00:28And Ali is close to return of play, so let's see if tomorrow comes too early, yes or no.
00:36And that leaves, of course, Freddie Woodman as an option, who is definitely fit.
00:42Where are you at as well? I know we appreciate that there's still a bit of a way to go
00:46in this season,
00:46but where are you at in terms of planning the next season?
00:53As I said so many times, I'm mainly here for the short and mid to long term,
00:59but mainly my time is spent for the short term, and that means Crystal Palace tomorrow.
01:03And of course there are conversations going on about next season,
01:08but my complete focus is, and still should be, on this season because margins are small.
01:15One or two results can make a big difference, as we saw,
01:20because I think two weeks ago we weren't five points clear of the number six,
01:25and two results later we are, so it can also go both ways.
01:31So my full focus is on Palace, which is needed because, as you know,
01:36we've played them three times already this season and weren't able to beat them once.
01:40At the same time you've given yourself that breathing space in terms of qualifying for next season,
01:44the Champions League at the moment.
01:45Yeah, that is what the results recently have done to us.
01:51I think in the last eight games we picked up 16 points.
01:54And it doesn't always feel like that because in between we had to play Paris Saint-Germain and Man City.
01:59So, but our recent league form is acceptable.
02:05We are expecting further protests from the fans there regarding the rising ticket prices this weekend,
02:10and the yellow card protests where fans will lift the yellow cards up in the 13th minute.
02:15How do you feel about that? How does it impact you guys,
02:17particularly given the importance again of maintaining the run that you're on at the moment?
02:21Yeah, I think as long as I'm in football there are disagreements,
02:25and almost all the time these disagreements are between people that have the best interest in the club,
02:31so it could be me with a player, it could be someone else,
02:36but we always have the best interest for the club.
02:38So the only thing I can say about that is that I think two weeks ago against Fulham there was
02:44also a protest,
02:45but we felt the complete support throughout the whole game of our fans,
02:48and that's what I mean with having the best interest in the club.
02:53When they have a protest like this they are still there to support the team,
02:58and that's also what's needed tomorrow especially.
03:03The first one I'm thinking about is Freddie Woodman.
03:06If he has to start, if Ali is not ready to start, then I think a player like him,
03:11but all of them definitely need a lot of support from our fans tomorrow.
03:16Andy, you mentioned Freddie Woodman, obviously he came on in the derby and settled into the game.
03:22If you do have to go with him, if Alisson isn't available,
03:25how much faith have you got in his abilities and what do you see as his best qualities?
03:29No, I think for a reason we've signed an experienced third goalkeeper.
03:34Usually you don't need him that much, but there could be situations
03:40if one is injured and the other one gets a suspension.
03:43That makes usually more sense than expecting two goalkeepers to be injured.
03:48Then it's needed to have a third goalkeeper with experience,
03:51and that's why we were happy that we could pick him up on a free transfer this summer.
03:56Apart from him being a good goalkeeper, which he's shown,
03:59I think when he was young he won the Euros with the under-17s,
04:02and I think with the under-20s he won the World Cup.
04:06And then he made himself a career at Newcastle, Preston-Norvan,
04:09and has the experience to play even at Premier League but definitely at Championship level.
04:17And apart from that, he's a very good man,
04:20and he's very light in the dressing room.
04:23And I think that's also a role that's important for the third goalkeeper,
04:27if he's not playing.
04:28If he's playing, it's more important that he has a good performance
04:31than his teammates like him.
04:34And that's why I think he's ready for it,
04:37but it will always be helpful if the fans are there to support him tomorrow.
04:42You mentioned the record against Palace before,
04:45no wins against them this season,
04:47it's only one in six overall for Liverpool.
04:49Why do you think it's been so difficult this match up for you?
04:53No, as always what makes it difficult are the players you face,
04:57I think they have a good team.
05:01They've already had a good team two or three years ago,
05:04one from that team, Guayu is now at City,
05:10Olyse, who is at Bayern Munich, making a great career for himself now.
05:15And of course they have a very good manager who's able to bring a lot of discipline in that team,
05:21and it's really, really, really hard to create chances against them.
05:26I've watched with my staff quite a lot of games, as we always do, of these teams,
05:31but probably now a bit more to find ways of creating chances against them,
05:35because you're watching, it doesn't matter which game,
05:38I'm not going to come up with the games I've watched,
05:40but you're watching 60 minutes of football
05:43and you haven't seen the other team creating a chance yet against them.
05:46And then, on the other hand, they are very direct in their playing style,
05:50with good attackers going quite fast in behind your last line,
05:55so I think they have conceded after Arsenal the least goals,
06:04so that tells you a lot, and there's a reason for that,
06:07because they hardly concede a chance.
06:11Mo Salah starting to hit scoring for him again,
06:13three goals in his last three Premier League starts.
06:15What is it down to him getting back on the goals again?
06:20I think, first of all, it's really important for us
06:22that we have attackers that score goals,
06:23because if you look at the success of last season,
06:27we had multiple attackers that scored a lot, a lot, a lot of goals,
06:31and this season now you can just look at the numbers
06:33and we are not scoring as many as we did last season.
06:38I think there's a little drop-off maybe also in chance creation,
06:41not as much as the goal scoring you would expect.
06:48Do you understand what I mean?
06:49So there's a little drop-off in chance creation,
06:51but not as much that we don't score so many goals anymore.
06:58With Mo, I've said it many times, but that probably also goes for the other ones,
07:02there's always parts in the season where the ball just falls to you
07:05and you don't have to do anything difficult and score,
07:09and in other moments you do so much yourself to try to create a chance
07:13and it's just actually never working or the goalkeeper makes incredible saves.
07:18But normally, and that happens now with Mo, things go back to normal,
07:22and normal for Mo in his Liverpool career is that he's scoring goals.
07:27Just one with regards to Alexander Isaac,
07:29I just wonder how long do you think it will be
07:32until he gets towards his peak physical fitness,
07:35and do you think having a World Cup to play in at the end of the season
07:39will help or hinder him to get to that level of fitness?
07:44It won't hinder him.
07:48What would be the best scenario for him is not 100% left or right,
07:54so I cannot say this would have been better than that one,
07:57but a very good pre-season with us, six or seven weeks,
08:01would have been a very good lead-up to his season as well,
08:04but if he has a good World Cup where he plays a lot of games,
08:07that would be helpful.
08:09The temperature is probably quite high in America,
08:12so I don't know what the tempo of the games is,
08:14usually the tempo of games when they play for their countries is lower
08:18than Premier League or Champions League standards,
08:21but I'm happy that he's back.
08:24What is realistic where he is now?
08:26You tell me, I think we can all understand
08:28that if a player missed out four or five months of training
08:31before he came to us, then we build him up,
08:34and the moment that he was ready he got injured again,
08:36missing out four months again, and now he's two weeks with us maybe?
08:41Yeah, that's a lot of months without training time with the team.
08:47In the middle of a season where everyone is top and top and top fit,
08:51that's not the easiest part to come back,
08:53but I think we are seeing progress in the games he's played,
09:00now this one, and we're hoping that progress can continue,
09:02and how fast he's then at his best level.
09:07I don't know that, I cannot look at the future,
09:10but I'm hoping for us and for himself very soon.
09:14How?
09:18There's been a lot to talk about goalkeepers already,
09:20but can I ask you about Alisson?
09:22He took the option to extend his field this season,
09:28and the last season he's had a few issues with injuries,
09:31and this week we've seen him being linked with all the clubs,
09:34so I'm just wondering how do you see his short-term, medium-term future?
09:40No, I'm only focused on his short-term future,
09:42and that's getting him back into goal as soon as possible.
09:46But that's not what you're asking.
09:49Would he be the most stubborn one in this room, you think?
09:52Or would he be the most stubborn one in this room?
09:55No? Oh, OK, because I think you know what my answer is going to be.
10:01So you're not even trying it anymore,
10:03but the answer is going to be that, of course,
10:06all these rumours that are out there are there about him
10:10and probably about me and about others,
10:13we don't react to rumours in this room.
10:16By the way, also not in my conversations with Richard,
10:19we only react when facts need to be told,
10:23and that's not the situation at the moment.
10:25But the main focus for Ali is, I think, very clear,
10:28that's getting back into goal as soon as possible for the club.
10:32He loves to play for,
10:34and then he wants to be in goal for the country he loves to play for,
10:38and that's Brazil.
10:39And I think that's already short- and mid-term future.
10:43That's not the answer you wanted, was it?
11:03Yeah, of course we're looking at these kind of injuries he's having,
11:08because it doesn't make too much sense to look into the injury of Giovanni Leone
11:12or Conor Bradley, because that's pure bad luck.
11:15A muscle injury, you always try to prevent that with your training programme
11:19and your schedule and what you can do about it.
11:23But he's not the only one, I think you said earlier in his career here,
11:28that's completely true, but football has changed so much.
11:31Everywhere you see muscle injuries, more and more and more and more,
11:35and we all know why, because of this crazy schedule we have to play,
11:40which to a certain extent I like, because every night I'm at home,
11:45I'm looking at my television and I'm like,
11:47oh, there's a game of football, that's nice.
11:51So for a football fan it's really nice,
11:54of course for the health of the players it's getting more and more and more,
12:00and maybe age plays a part, but this week we saw one of the youngest players
12:08playing at an incredibly high level, Lamin Djamal getting injured with a muscle injury as well.
12:12So I would not put that down to age, I would put that down more to the schedule that we
12:18are facing.
12:20Hi, Arne. I want to talk about another young player, Rio Ingamala.
12:23He's made great strides this season, but he's still waiting for his first senior assist.
12:28And I've noticed that a lot of his minutes don't seem to be with the elite strikers,
12:32more than backup strikers, people who maybe don't have quite the same striking instincts.
12:36I think he's only played 31% of his minutes with either Isak or Eketike so far this season.
12:43And thinking before what you were saying about getting Alex up to speed a little bit,
12:47is there some kind of idea about maybe looking at the combinations of players,
12:51as Rio feels like he's got the profile of some of the players who helped Isak when he was at
12:56Newcastle?
12:56Are those kind of considerations maybe the combination of the chemistries coming into your mind?
13:04No, in your long question, there are a lot of good things you say,
13:12and I can also relate to that question, in the sense that where our problems have been this season.
13:18So Rio and Gamala, at his age, there's only one player in the top five competition
13:26that made more minutes than him at top level, Champions League, Premier League,
13:33or Serie A or Bundesliga or whatever.
13:36So that tells you he's made a lot of minutes, which I said he would do,
13:39because he's getting better and better and better.
13:41But since he made so many minutes, and he only made how many minutes?
13:45220 with Ida-Izak.
13:47No, that tells you also one of the reasons why we maybe struggle to score,
13:52that we're not having our No. 9s as much available as we want to.
13:58Of course, it helps for every player that we have all of our best players available,
14:04so the more he or anyone else could play with Alexander-Izak or with Hugo Iketike,
14:09the better it is, yeah.
14:10But although I saw one of his Instagram posts of Hugo,
14:15where he from crutches started to run,
14:19but unfortunately I don't think that's realistic,
14:22so we have to miss him unfortunately for a long time.
14:28And Alex is getting closer and closer to making 90 minutes,
14:33so that's helpful.
14:35But it's the reality of this season that we missed.
14:43I don't know if today is about goalkeepers from...
14:46We don't have an Hungarian one.
14:48Oh, yeah, we do, yeah, that's true.
14:51I was like, how does he talk about it?
14:53Yeah, we do, yeah.
14:54I thought about these three, but the fourth one is Hungarian, yeah.
14:56Will you include Patriot in the squad for tomorrow's game?
15:00And I know he likely won't play,
15:02but how do you see his progress since he arrived at the club?
15:05Is he at the level to play a Premier League game?
15:09He was already on the bench last week, I don't know if you noticed that,
15:13but because we were short on players, we added Armin to the bench as well,
15:22because he's also doing the warm-up, so there was a spot available,
15:25so he could be the manager.
15:26Of course he's on the bench tomorrow.
15:29We think we signed a very talented goalkeeper in him,
15:32he already played minutes at the highest level, I think in Hungary, wasn't it?
15:37Yeah, yeah, so now he's played multiple games with the under-21s,
15:44and of course he gets better and better,
15:47because if you are every day on the pitch doing finishing drills
15:51with the attackers we are having, you are becoming a better goalkeeper.
15:55Still very young, still, of course, progress to be made,
16:00but that's completely normal, but we think we've signed a very talented
16:03and good goalkeeper that eventually could definitely play for us.
16:06Yeah, and do you see him at the level of the situation?
16:12If you ask me, do I see him at the level of Alisson?
16:15My answer is no, but that's not criticism at all.
16:19If you ask me if, and yeah, let's touch wood,
16:25but it would fit this season completely,
16:27if something would happen with Freddie tomorrow,
16:31then if Armin then comes in I'm completely comfortable,
16:35because he's very comfortable on the ball,
16:39has a very good instinct, and he reads the game really well,
16:43so he knows where the shot would go to, and that I like a lot.
16:51So, yeah, if he needs to come on, if Alisson is not ready to play tomorrow,
16:56and Freddie needs to start and something might happen,
16:59I'm completely comfortable by bringing him in.
17:01OK, thank you.
17:03Just a check on Joe Goldmiss,
17:05how much is he going to be back from the squad?
17:06Yeah.
17:12Joe, in my year, was that he's back in the squad,
17:15so that's really positive,
17:17because last week I only had two centre-backs that were playing
17:20and no-one on the bench,
17:21so it's really helpful that Joe is back.
17:25And Wata is starting to go out, not with the team yet,
17:30but starting to do exercises outside the pitch with the rehab team,
17:34so he's making steps,
17:36but he will not be available next week for United or the week after,
17:40but we are hoping and expecting him to be back in the end of the season.
17:45Just on Hubert, what's the feedback been like on how the surgery went,
17:49and are you any clearer yet in terms of the time scale?
17:53No, the surgery went well,
17:55so that's the first and important step that he had to make,
17:59but I think in such a long rehab process
18:02there are so many crucial steps to be made
18:05before you can actually say it's going to take that amount of months
18:08or that amount of months,
18:09but it's that it's going to take a long time.
18:11Everybody can know that if you call the first surgeon
18:14and ask him how long is this injury going to take,
18:18they will tell you multiple months,
18:21and then it all depends on how rehab goes.
18:23He's a very explosive player,
18:25so usually that's not helpful if you have this injury,
18:28but yeah, maybe he's the exception to that.
18:31We don't know yet,
18:32but the first and most important step is that the surgery went well,
18:35and he can from now on work on his recovery,
18:39which is going to take a long time.
18:42But he will, as I said, will be back stronger,
18:45as all the others that have been injured for such a long time.
18:48If you look at Giovanni Leoni,
18:50I don't know if you once in a while see some Instagram posts of the club,
18:53but this guy becomes a beast.
18:59You're welcome.
18:59You're welcome.
Comments