Arne Slot on Liverpool latest ahead of Nottingham Forest trip
13/01/2025
AXA training centre, Liverpool, UK
13/01/2025
AXA training centre, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Yeah, let's start, yeah, maybe, yeah.
00:10Arnold, just to start with, check on TV,
00:14Joe Gomez and Darwin Dynasty have only two absentees lately,
00:18how far away is Joe at the moment?
00:20Quite far, he's definitely not training with the team yet and Darwin is suspended,
00:25so those are the two we will miss tomorrow.
00:30What sense is there when it comes to this game,
00:34do you see Forrest as a type of contender,
00:37and therefore how decisive a moment could this be in your season?
00:40I've always said that you can judge the table best halfway through the season,
00:45and that moment is there now, so if Forrest is then up there with us,
00:51with Arsenal, Chelsea, City and all the others,
00:54then they definitely are a team that's in competition with us and the other teams.
01:02And they deserve to be treated like this if you look at the way they play,
01:06if you look at their results, so, yeah,
01:10it's going to be a very difficult challenge tomorrow to get a result.
01:16Obviously they can close the gap between yourselves to three points at the same time as well,
01:21what sense is there that maybe you owe them one for what happened at Anfield earlier this season?
01:26I think they already showed in retrospect how good of a team they are.
01:32Leading up to that game I think they had two draws and one win,
01:36so that's why in general I think every time Liverpool lose a home game
01:42that is something we don't expect.
01:44I think in that moment of time I also saw the stat that Virgil played 100 home games for Liverpool,
01:50only lost once, so for us to lose then on that day was for me hard to take,
01:55as you probably experienced.
02:00Now looking back at it and seeing where they are in the league,
02:04it's not been such a shock result as I thought it was back then.
02:08They had a very good game plan, changed the wingers that normally played
02:16and brought them in in the end, and they made a difference.
02:19Although I expect the wingers that have done so well to be in the starting XI tomorrow,
02:25that's something he changed back then and that worked really well for them during that game.
02:33Given the players you've got available now and the fact you've got a couple missing for a game like this,
02:39and very few are injured at the moment, the way you've managed the players,
02:43how much of an advantage do you think that will be now going into a really busy period
02:47when you see a lot of Premier League clubs around you that have got a lot of injuries?
02:51Yeah, but there's also this moment, two weeks ago or three weeks ago or two months ago,
03:00or in two weeks things can be totally different,
03:03but it's definitely helpful for every manager everywhere around the world
03:07to have all your players available.
03:10That is what we almost have at the moment, and that's a very positive thing,
03:15because we play so many games, and not only us,
03:19all the teams that are in Europe here in England play a lot of games,
03:23because there's a League Cup and an FA Cup to be played in as well.
03:27So then it helps if they are available, but you can't compare all situations together.
03:32Some teams have squads that are even bigger than us,
03:35some teams don't have a squad that's bigger than us,
03:41but the teams we are in competition with, of course,
03:44they would have loved to have all their players available,
03:47but there are also teams that have a lot of players in their squad.
03:51But ideally, like I said, you want to have all your players available,
03:54and that's what we are having at the moment.
03:56Let's hope that almost all of them, we can continue going like this.
04:01And in terms of having seen some of the young players play at the weekend in the FA Cup game,
04:06how excited are you by the next crop of young players that are going to be coming through?
04:11How about your disposal in the future?
04:13That's very important for every club, but especially for this club.
04:17I think I said it after the last League Cup game, not in Tottenham but the one before,
04:23that this club always brought talents through the ranks, is that the way you say it?
04:28And it's nice to see that, again, there are a few youngsters
04:33that are having impact already in our training sessions,
04:36but like you saw in the game Saturday, also during the game,
04:39we have Jadon scoring, we have Rio having a good game,
04:42we have Trey assisting to the fourth goal that Federico made,
04:47so it's always nice, because it also gives good energy in the building.
04:53If academy players train with us, do well, play with us, do well,
04:57that gives nice energy in the team as well.
05:00Hi.
05:02Arna, I agree with what you're saying earlier on in the season,
05:05that the formation that you most like to play against was a low defensive block,
05:10because you'll have more possession.
05:12Not even Forest this season have got that system almost off to a fine art,
05:17as they showed at Anfield and in games.
05:20Since then, why do you think they've been able to implement that in such a successful fashion?
05:27I know they have the pace in the wide areas with the full-backs as well as the wingers,
05:31very clever in midfield, it is going to be a difficult threat for you?
05:36Yeah, it definitely is.
05:38I think what every manager tries to do is find the game plan or the playing style
05:42that suits the players best, and I think that is what the manager of Nottingham did very well.
05:51The playing style suits them really good, so they have a hard-working team,
05:56so without the ball they work really hard.
05:58Chris Wood is a great example of that, but he's also a player that can hold the ball.
06:03And they have, like you said, very fast wingers and players on the midfield
06:08that can bring these wingers in promising positions.
06:11Mostly in counter-attacks, but they are not only counter-attacks, that's definitely not true.
06:18They've scored and been a threat by counter-attacks a lot,
06:21but they can also bring the ball if the ball is on the floor,
06:25so they hardly take the risk of build-up from the goalkeeper,
06:29but if they bring the ball to the floor then you can see the quality they also have when they want to play.
06:34So, yeah, I think Nuno did a great job in implementing a style of play
06:40that suits the players very well.
06:43Great to see Diogo Jota getting back on the scoresheet at the weekend.
06:48He's had so many problems with injuries in the past 12 months or so, and different injuries.
06:53Will you devise a special programme to try and maintain his fitness levels
06:58and sort of manage his time?
07:00Because he can be such a fabulous addition for you,
07:03not just with his finish and where he's clinical,
07:05but he's so aggressive at the top end of the pitch.
07:09I think all of them have for 80 per cent the same programme,
07:14and then the last 20 per cent is for every player individually,
07:17so they do individual work in the gym as well.
07:22So it's not only for him that we have a special programme,
07:25we try to have a special programme for all the squad players we have.
07:28And it's true, he's, like all the others, someone I like to have in my squad,
07:34I like to have him available.
07:36And when it comes to building up his match fitness,
07:39I think you also saw that it went from 30 minutes to 30 minutes to a bit more.
07:45And now he's ready to play 90, and that's a good thing,
07:49because we have to play many games in the upcoming weeks.
07:53It's nice to have him available and hopefully he stays like this
07:56for the last four or five months.
08:00Jota also wore the armbands at the weekend,
08:03and it's been interesting hearing your views on what players bring on the pitch.
08:07Just wondering now, as a senior member of that forward line,
08:10what is he like in the next group?
08:13A hard worker, what you see on the pitch as well.
08:16So he tries to become a better player every single day.
08:21He's a player that is, in my opinion, good in both parts,
08:28so he's a threat when he's attacking, but for a number nine, like Chris Wood,
08:33he works really hard as well, and I think that's modern football.
08:37You need to have 11 players that work really hard.
08:40Back in the days when I played, you could be a number 10 like me
08:43that didn't do that much without the ball.
08:46But in modern football that's impossible if you want to compete.
08:51So Jota is an experienced player, so that was also one of the reasons why he wore the armband.
08:57I think he served the club the longest from the players that were in the team at that moment.
09:02So, yeah, let's hope he stays fit.
09:04With both teams at the top of the table,
09:07it's been suggested this is a bit of a throwback fixture
09:10to some of those adjustments in the 70s and 80s.
09:13I'm not expecting a history lesson by any stretch,
09:16but how much of that are you aware of?
09:20I think it was ten minutes ago when someone told me, I'm not going to say who,
09:25that it was 1978-79 at Liverpool,
09:30and then two years at Forest and then Liverpool again.
09:33So I'm aware of that, but of course I didn't know the exact years,
09:38but I did know that Forest was a big force in English football for a long period of time.
09:47But that's been quite a long time ago and now they're all back at it.
09:50But they are doing really, really good,
09:53and Nuno is doing an incredible job.
09:55But if you look at the amount of money they've spent,
09:58it's not a complete surprise that they do well this season.
10:16Yeah, I said you can judge the league table better halfway through the season
10:21than after six, seven, eight, nine or ten games.
10:24But we also know that in the second half of the season teams improve for a few reasons.
10:29Some teams bring extra players in, in the January window.
10:34In general it's a good thing and it should be like this,
10:38that if a manager works longer with the team, the team starts to play better.
10:42And there's even more at stake in the second half of the season,
10:46at least that's what you sometimes feel,
10:48so that's why you see some shocking results in the last part of the season,
10:52where teams that are battling against eradication
10:55all of a sudden can win against a top-four, top-five team.
10:58So that's why we have to improve,
11:01and that's why it's a good way of judging the league table,
11:05but it's still a long way to go,
11:08with for us 20 games to be played and for the rest 19, am I correct?
11:13Or 19-18? 19-18, I think.
11:18Has it gone better than you could imagine or are you expecting it to go?
11:23I said many times that if you go into a job you don't think about
11:28where we will be halfway through the season when it comes to the position in the league table.
11:33What you do try and are focused on a lot is,
11:37can we make the players really fit and can we let them work really hard,
11:42and can we implement playing style in the best possible way from the start on already?
11:47You never know what the other teams are going to do,
11:50so I don't think any one of us would have expected to be where City is at the moment,
11:55although you can see already now that they are coming back,
11:58that they are winning their games in a way where we're all like,
12:01ah, this is City again.
12:04So you don't think about these things before the start of the season,
12:08you mostly think about, OK, can I let these players play in a way I would like them to play,
12:16and hopefully the fans would like them to play as well.
12:20Liverpool scored more goals today than the Premier League,
12:23but they're coming up against a team that are on five consecutive clean sheets.
12:28Now, considering that they're not really giving up chances,
12:31let alone conceding goals at the moment,
12:33but Liverpool have won every single game in which they've scored first,
12:36do you think the opening to this game might be more important than even some of the other games?
12:41I think the opening of a game is always very important,
12:45especially if you play an away game, because I assume,
12:48and I think I'm 100 per cent right,
12:51that the atmosphere in the stadium will be fired up tomorrow,
12:55before the game and definitely from the start.
12:57So that makes it even more important to not get that going even more.
13:04But, yeah, they are a team that hardly concedes goals,
13:08and there's also a reason for it, they don't take the risk in build-up.
13:12So mostly when they lose a ball, they've got many players behind the ball.
13:17And if they do have to defend, I see 11 players that work really hard
13:21to prevent the other teams from scoring.
13:23That is something we have in common with Forrest,
13:26and that's probably also the reason why we are...
13:29Did we concede less or just as much?
13:32You were about to say something?
13:34Just a few less.
13:36So that's probably the main reason why these teams don't concede a lot.
13:41And then they have centre-backs that can defend the box really well,
13:45so if you bring a lot of crossers in, it's not easy to score against them.
13:49We've experienced this at Anfield, because I looked the game back,
13:52and they didn't steal anything because we hardly created a chance.
13:56And, yeah, they almost deserved to win,
14:02because they made us play a poor game,
14:06and they were doing really well in that game.
14:11So we know it's going to be tough,
14:14not only because we faced them a few months ago,
14:17but also we'll see how special of a season it is for them.
14:23You mentioned watching the game back in September,
14:26what can your team learn from that?
14:30I watched it back because I wanted to see what we did back then
14:36in terms of tactics and what we could do now,
14:39but I assume, but I'm not sure of course,
14:42because I don't make the line-up for Forrest,
14:45but back then it was already a surprise for us
14:47that Hudson-Odoi and Elanga weren't playing.
14:50But they are playing so well now that it would again be a surprise to me
14:54if they don't start now, and back then they didn't start
14:58and they played more with midfielders in these positions.
15:02So we have to wait and see.
15:04We are prepared for both, of course,
15:07but that we have to do better than that game, that is clear.
15:10And they have still a similar playing style,
15:13like we still have a similar playing style.
15:16So we have to look into the details of what we can do better than that game.
15:23Just on the towel, when Rooney comes on the centre-back top
15:26and then Blake Davies,
15:28I know you said it's a testament to his attitude,
15:30because he hasn't had a lot of football in this big position this season.
15:33Is that a...?
15:35No.
15:39Testament means how positive that is from him as a person?
15:42Yeah, no, that is clear.
15:45So I asked Harvey to come into the room before we played that game,
15:52because I know Harvey wants to get his chance at the No. 10 position.
15:56And because of the injuries we had with players we didn't have available,
16:01I had to play him from the right.
16:05He did that really well, but for Watai it's the same,
16:08but I didn't even invite him in, because I know...
16:11Harvey is also a very good person, but I know what kind of person Watai is.
16:15He's just, wherever you play me I will do my best, whenever you play me.
16:19So if it's five minutes before the end, he comes in and gives everything he has.
16:26And that might be normal for a lot of fans to hear,
16:30but for as long as I'm into football I've seen players
16:33come in five minutes before the end also doing different things,
16:37showing a different attitude than Watai shows.
16:40So he's an important part of our team, every time we need him,
16:44on the midfield or even now as a centre-back,
16:46because I didn't want to bring Ibu in two days after he played against United,
16:50and then after 20 minutes we already had to make a substitution.
16:53And he did really well, Watai,
16:55because the moment I took him out of our last line we conceded.
16:58Conceded.