Liverpool boss Arne Slot on the romance and his memories of the FA Cup and the prospect of rotating against Accrington Stanley in the third round
Melwood, Liverpool, UK
Melwood, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Something new?
00:02It's different.
00:04All in today.
00:06Vinnie?
00:20When you said yourself linked with, I was like, which club are you going to say now?
00:24But you mean as a club, we are linked with Clarenscalia.
00:28What I make of that is that it's January.
00:32I think I said it after the West Ham game.
00:36Don't disappoint me.
00:38Please come up with all these clubs and all these players that are in the interest from us
00:43or the ones that don't play a lot for us are going to go somewhere else.
00:46That's what's happening now.
00:49Nine out of ten times, 99 out of 100 times in the end of the window
00:53it's been clear that almost all of these stories weren't true.
00:57So, what can I comment about it?
01:01The rumours keep going for it.
01:06But no comments from my side.
01:09What you can tell us about the players you have available to you?
01:12So, Shaboz Lai, Konsa, how are they?
01:15And what opportunity is it to give minutes to the likes of Harvey, Federico and Conor Bradley?
01:21Every game is an opportunity for them to have a chance to play.
01:25And this one as well.
01:28Dom trained with the under-21s yesterday.
01:34Durrell, like I said, he was a bit ill last week.
01:39As a result of that I had to take him off during the game,
01:44but I'm expecting him to be available for tomorrow.
01:48So, yes, we know we can use these players in every single game,
01:55and also in the one we have on Saturday.
01:59Do you know about the relationship between Liverpool and Atkinson?
02:03Not that much, of course, because I'm only here for half a year.
02:08But I do know about the milk efforts, probably everybody knows this.
02:14Immediately after the game there was a clip or a video about a player
02:20that was so happy that he was going to play at Anfield.
02:24So these kind of things I know. I know people from this area also play for that club.
02:30There's quite a lot, actually, that I already know.
02:34And, of course, I know a lot about the team,
02:38which today I'm going to know even more about,
02:41because we're going to dive into it even more today.
02:44But, yeah, that's all I can say about it.
02:48Mike?
02:50The standards have been so high for Liverpool this season, incredibly high,
02:55so when they slip, even very, very slightly, it's kind of very noticeable,
03:01and we know Manchester United played really well against Tottenham too,
03:05but any reasons in-house for maybe the lack of rhythm
03:10and that the passing hasn't been as crisp and sharp, perhaps?
03:15I don't see that many differences compared to many other games we've played.
03:20The only difference is that we've played these two games
03:23after winning 6-3 from Tottenham and winning 5-0 from West Ham.
03:27So after those two games, everybody said,
03:32we know they were good, but that they were that good,
03:35we probably didn't know even that yet.
03:39So if you compare it to those standards,
03:41I do agree that the games against United and the last game against Tottenham
03:46were of lower standards compared to those two,
03:48if you look back at all the other games.
03:50So even Leicester City away, we were 2-1 up with 10 minutes to play,
03:55so the whole season, as I've said many times, we won a lot of games,
04:00and almost every game we won, maybe the only exception could be Chelsea,
04:05but all the other ones we've deserved to win, but never by a big margin.
04:09It was always very tight, and if people ask me what can we improve,
04:14that is increasing that margin,
04:17because otherwise you always depend on a bit of luck
04:21or a bit of being unlucky as well, or a certain decision that can be made.
04:25I mean the referee decision, of course,
04:29and we must make sure that we don't depend on those moments anymore,
04:34and that's the next step we have to make
04:36if we don't want to depend on luck or bad luck,
04:39because Crystal Palace away, they got a big chance 10 minutes before the end,
04:45didn't score, we beat them 1-0.
04:47And I know in football it's everywhere the same around the world,
04:50you're only judged by the results,
04:52and because of the results people judge you on the performance,
04:55and it's not many times that if a team has a draw or a loss
04:58that people say they played really, really well.
05:02It's a long answer, this.
05:04The Tottenham game, if the referee would have given the red card,
05:08we would have kept a clean sheet over there,
05:10maybe be able to score against 10 men,
05:12everybody would have said, again, a difficult away game,
05:15with a clean sheet, they totally controlled and dominated the game.
05:19Again, a good performance of Liverpool,
05:23and now, because we conceded the goal,
05:26it's all about us being a bit more sloppy and all this kind of thing.
05:30That's what this industry is about,
05:32and it's up to me to see is there really so much difference between us
05:37playing Leicester City, playing Ipswich away, playing Crystal Palace away,
05:42and I think we are still the same team, also in terms of performance.
05:47So this game represents an opportunity for lots of players
05:50who have been on the fringe of things
05:52and haven't been able to play as many games as they would have liked, certainly.
05:56And if you look at Harvey Elliott in particular,
05:59he's had 100 injuries which have undermined his opportunities to progress,
06:05but he's such a talented player that when you get to that stage
06:10he can only learn so much in training, can't he?
06:13So he does need games, otherwise he's kind of like a brick wall.
06:18I agree with you, he's a talented player, he's been this for us for so long.
06:23In recent weeks he comes in quite a lot and gets his minutes over there,
06:28but like it is for him, like it is for all the others there in competition
06:31with many other good players as well.
06:33He was very unlucky, I think it was after two games he got injured,
06:37he was out for a long time, and what I've seen till now
06:42with almost all of our players that have been out for quite a while,
06:46that it's in this league, in this tempo, in this intensity,
06:50in the quality we have, but the other teams have as well,
06:54it is not so easy to come back and be at your best immediately.
06:58I see this not only with Javi, I see this with almost all the other players
07:04that have been out for five, six, seven or eight weeks.
07:07And that is the balance we have to find by giving them playing time
07:13to get back to their best level, but still be able to win every game.
07:17Like I just said, our margins are constantly small,
07:25and if you're 5-0 up you can give players that have been out for quite a long time
07:29half an hour or a half or even longer,
07:31but that is not the way we won our game still now.
07:35That's also the reason why if we have one or two times,
07:39we are a bit unlucky that we can draw a game or lose a game.
07:45Hi, Arne. The stats show the team tap the ball down in the right,
07:50is that an area you need to look at to give Trent more protection?
07:57It might be true if you tell me, mostly he's about the stats,
08:00but is that by a margin?
08:03We are talking here about right-side 70 per cent, left-side 30 per cent?
08:09On the left?
08:1342.
08:15OK, so that is more. But it's not by a mile.
08:20It could also mean that we attack a lot on the right side,
08:24that they pick up the ball and then play their counter-attack over that side.
08:27If it's only 12 per cent, I don't see anything in this.
08:32What we do have to see is how we concede our chances,
08:35how we concede our goals, and that's not only about our right side,
08:39because if they attack on our right side,
08:42they still have to go to the middle to find the goal.
08:45If they go to the middle, it's the players who play in the middle,
08:48and the players from the left side have to come inside and defend that as well.
08:52I do see a certain pattern in the goal we concede,
08:56but I don't see the pattern if it's about Trent, if that's what you mean.
09:00Not at all. Trent has had one difficult game for us,
09:05and maybe a few that were OK to good,
09:08and mainly he had great games when he played for us this season.
09:12I know there's a lot of focus on him at the moment,
09:16but I would also like to highlight the focus on how well he did
09:21when he came in the last half-hour, and how our fans reacted on him.
09:25That's what pleased me even more during that game.
09:42What are the challenges?
09:45I think every team that plays against us, it's a special occasion for every team we face,
09:52but especially for a lower-league team.
09:57They will be all up for it, they've lived towards this game for many weeks probably,
10:03nine or ten times all players are fit then, there's no-one suspended.
10:07The challenge is always to bring the best out of ourselves,
10:12so I think everybody could understand that if you go to a Champions League final,
10:20everyone is completely hyped up and ready, and that is for them today.
10:26Tomorrow it's going to feel as if it's the Champions League final,
10:29so we have to be aware of that.
10:32And nine out of ten times the first 25 minutes, half-hours,
10:37is the most difficult part of the game, because they will still be very intense,
10:42and it's up to us to be ready for them wanting to play the best game of their lives,
10:48and that is what we have to do as well.
10:59I mostly played at a team that was not as good as the one we faced.
11:05That's not completely true, but large parts of my career it was true.
11:10My experience as a manager, I don't know.
11:17When I was at Feyenoord I always said that I was unlucky in the draw,
11:23and what I mean with that is that almost every time we had a draw,
11:28we had the most difficult one that we could get in that draw,
11:31and that means you play the same team that plays in the same league.
11:35Where other teams maybe sometimes had what we call an amateur club,
11:39that means there are no professionals in Holland,
11:42that can be sometimes the situation.
11:45So I don't remember playing against a very low-league club
11:52in my managerial career in Holland, to be fair.
11:56But I was only a manager there for three or four years,
11:59so that has something to do with it as well.
12:02Hi, Arne. I'm kind of interested in the patterns you've noticed since this evening,
12:06but I dare say you're probably not going to tell me about them.
12:09My question is more about the rest and rhythm.
12:12Jürgen has got some time off between the Manchester United and the West Ham game,
12:16after I think it was six games in 19 days or something like that.
12:20I've heard you talk before about how used to playing every three days this team are,
12:25and maybe that suits them a little better.
12:27So I wondered how complicated have you found it,
12:29getting that balance between the rest and the rhythm,
12:32in your first season here in England with the extended Champions League
12:36and the two domestic cup competitions?
12:42It's not difficult, because I think if you are in a league like this
12:46and you play so many games,
12:49one of the most important things you can do is give players some rest once in a while,
12:54when it's possible.
12:56Then you always wonder for yourself if they've been indeed a few days off,
13:01which has happened many more times this season,
13:04where afterwards we did have the results.
13:06You always wonder, you always try to look back and reflect,
13:09what have we done, could we have done better?
13:12But in both games we had a lot of intensity,
13:16it was necessary because both games were intense,
13:19especially against Tottenham.
13:21If you look at the physical output, it was one of our best games this season.
13:28That's not to say if we played the best with the ball, but physical output.
13:32So that tells you then, maybe for them being rested,
13:35that at least they are completely ready to compete.
13:38You cannot see what some people try to say now,
13:43that we might be tired or those kind of things.
13:46No, not at all.
13:48We are even having a step up.
13:52But what probably was not seen a lot is that compared to the game two weeks ago,
13:57we've changed five positions,
13:59and a few of them didn't have a lot of playing time in the last six or seven weeks.
14:04That's what I just also said.
14:06If a player is out for six or seven weeks in this league
14:09and has to train for himself and then comes back in this intensity,
14:12sometimes you have to find your rhythm in the first 10, 15 or 20 minutes,
14:16and I think that's exactly what you saw against Tottenham.
14:20That's why that's probably stayed in the head for many people a long time.
14:23But if I look at the game back and I look at the last 70 minutes,
14:26I see that we were able, just as many times as two weeks ago,
14:31arriving in and around the final third of Tottenham,
14:36just as many times as two weeks ago.
14:38Now, there was a difference in the final third.
14:42We were not creating as many chances from getting into those positions
14:48as we did two weeks ago, but that is a normal situation in the season.
14:53That's the most difficult part of the pitch, the final third,
14:59and sometimes these attackers create chance after chance
15:02and sometimes it's a bit harder.
15:05I don't see anything into this.
15:08Just on rhythm and Kiezer, it's obviously been a tough start for him here with fitness.
15:15What do you want to see from him in the second half of this season?
15:19Is tomorrow maybe a chance for him to start to get some of that rhythm?
15:25Like I said, every game is a chance for every player to get some playing time.
15:30It's not only for him being difficult because of all the things you just said.
15:35I'm not going to say all these things again in terms of Matt Fitch.
15:39It's also that he has to compete with the likes of Cody Kakpo,
15:43Luis Diaz, Djoko Djota, Darwin Nunez and Mo Salah.
15:47Everybody here knows the numbers Mo Salah brings in.
15:52There's not many times a reason to take him out during a game or before a game.
15:57Also because he's so fit.
15:59I said many times before he was the fittest player that came in pre-season.
16:04He does everything every single day to keep his fitness.
16:08He wants to play every game and he shows up every single game.
16:11It's not only about Federico when we're talking about him being limited in his playing time.
16:17It's also about the others.
16:19But in terms of Federico, it definitely has to do with the way he came in.
16:28I don't know the English words.
16:30The rest were already training a lot and we had to bring him up in terms of Matt Fitch.
16:35It's a combination of reasons why he didn't play that much yet.
16:39But let's wait and see in the upcoming weeks and months if he's able to help us.
16:44Because the second half is even more important than the first half.
17:05Like I said, I didn't say it yet, but we still have to train.
17:09Yesterday we couldn't because our flight back to London arrived quite late.
17:16So we gave them a day off as a result.
17:20So we have to wait and see how everybody is recovered today.
17:25And then we have to make a decision which players we're going to bring to the game.
17:30But Trey has been in the squad many times already.
17:33Rio only once, Southampton away I think.
17:37But these players are doing really well when they train with us,
17:40doing really well when they play with the under-21s.
17:43So as long as they keep doing that,
17:45their chances of getting their moment in the first team will increase, of course.