Liverpool boss Arne Slot on latest Jota injury ahead of Liverpool's trip to Brentford
17/01/2025
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
17/01/2025
AXA Training Centre, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Are you OK?
00:02I am. You?
00:04Yeah, very well, thank you.
00:06Very well.
00:08I'm surprised at a ten-year contract for a player.
00:10LAUGHTER
00:14Any thought?
00:16I'm just going to check on Jota, is he OK to start?
00:20We know he was undergoing an individual session yesterday,
00:23and I'm just looking at the importance of him,
00:25because his last four Premier League goals have taken a total of five points,
00:29you've got the win against Palace, equaliser against Fulham,
00:32equaliser against Forestier, they might as well.
00:35Yeah, there's no doubt about the fact that Jota is an important player for us.
00:40But he wasn't, like you said, on the training ground yesterday,
00:43so that means we have to see today where he is.
00:46So it's not sure that he will be available for tomorrow,
00:50we have to wait and see today.
00:52What's the issue there?
00:55He felt a little bit when he came in, a little niggle, is that the way you say it?
01:00Yeah.
01:02During the half-hour he came in, and he could finish the game,
01:06but afterwards he complained a bit about it.
01:09That's why he didn't train yesterday,
01:11we have to wait and see if he's available today and then, of course, tomorrow.
01:15Obviously we're looking at the type of race and see the gap is four points at the moment,
01:19and we look at the game against Brentford as an opportunity to put pressure on Arsenal now,
01:23because they play after you, so how do you see it?
01:26Has it come into the thinking now that you can ask the question of Arsenal
01:28and then they have to respond?
01:30No, I don't look at it that way.
01:32I didn't even know that they were playing later than us.
01:35I only look at the opponent we have to face, and I know that's a tough one.
01:39Brentford was my first Premier League game, I think,
01:43and then I already thought,
01:46if this is going to be the resistance we get every week,
01:51then this is a more difficult league than the Eredivisie,
01:56which I knew before I came, but it was proven that day as well.
02:00They've had a very good season till now, had a 2-2 against City, great game,
02:05both teams creating a lot of chances,
02:09and their manager has done a fantastic job for so many years now,
02:13and I can see that it's a team that has worked together with their manager for a long time.
02:17So that's my only focus, and not on when Arsenal play or when Chelsea play,
02:23or when all the others play, we only focus on ourselves and the team we have to face.
02:30When the advantage at the top of the table is narrowed the way it has,
02:34how does that impact the squad mentally, if at all?
02:37I don't think we are as much as the media thinking about the league table every second of the day.
02:45We are trying to get the best out of the players, I mean my staff,
02:52and the players trying to get the best out of themselves every single day.
02:55These players know how long the season still is
02:58and how many games they have to be in the best possible form to win something at the end of the season,
03:03which is not something that happens every single season.
03:06So we are not so focused on the league table as other people are.
03:11We are focused on getting a good training session today and getting a good game tomorrow,
03:16and as a result of that we are hoping for a result,
03:20but the only way to get a result is to work on a daily basis in the best possible way.
03:28Just building on that point about Brentford,
03:32Virgil mentioned after the game against Forest that people might jokingly think we are in a bit of a crisis,
03:39but that's just another example of how tough the Premier League is this season,
03:43and Brentford are a real example of that, do you agree?
03:46Yeah, the last thing I agree, and the first one as well,
03:49this season, maybe more than every other season,
03:52shows the strength of every single team that's in the league.
03:55Even yesterday evening I think it was quite a surprise
03:58to see Southampton going toe-to-toe with United,
04:01so it shows you that in the second half of the season,
04:04and I told this thing last week as well,
04:07it's even harder to win your games than in the first half of the season,
04:10because teams are longer together, managers are working longer with the team,
04:14you've played already once against each other so maybe there's a different game plan,
04:18so some teams bring players in to strengthen the squad,
04:22and teams are fighting for getting into Europe, winning the league,
04:29trying to stay in the league.
04:32So the second half of the season is always even more difficult
04:35than the first half of the season,
04:38and Brentford is an example of a team that was already really strong
04:42in the first half of the season, especially at home.
04:45But it may have something to do with the fixture list as well,
04:48because they had a lot of difficult away games.
04:51But they are a very good team for a few years now,
04:54and they've showed it this first half of the season,
04:57and then on Tuesday evening again, against City.
05:00You've got a really busy period coming up now,
05:03where for the foreseeable future you're going to be playing week, weekend, week, weekend.
05:08Do you vary things in training, do you do anything differently
05:11in order to make sure the squad is fully prepared for that?
05:14No, because if I remember correctly this has been the situation
05:20from the moment we started against Brentford.
05:23Maybe that was the only week afterwards where we didn't play a game during the week,
05:26but from that moment on it was almost every time since the Champions League started,
05:30it's almost every week a double programme,
05:33and then you would tell me,
05:35yeah, but there were international breaks where they went to the national team.
05:38Which is true, because they were ten days off for me or seven days off for me.
05:42But not for the players, so even in March, again,
05:45where you feel like, OK, there's a break in March,
05:48but I know a bit better than every other country,
05:52where the Dutch team plays against, and that's Spain.
05:55So it's going to be for Virgil, for Cody and for Ryan,
05:58two very tough games against a very strong team,
06:01when you guys think they have a break.
06:04For the whole season it's like this,
06:07this is what makes the Premier League the hardest league in the world to play in,
06:11I think, and to compete in.
06:14But we've tried to prepare them in pre-season and during the year for this schedule,
06:20so if you look at it a bit closer, you see that every three or four weeks
06:26there's been a break for a player like Virgil,
06:29when we had a League Cup game or another game where he was off during the week.
06:33That's the way we try to manage it,
06:36and the good thing we still see is that the physical output,
06:41even after the winter break, is even higher than before,
06:44so they are completely fit and ready for this programme.
06:48But if you look at the results, you could argue differently,
06:51but I've said many times before that it's nine or ten times
06:54because of the resistance you face from the other team
06:57and not about if it's a 12-15 kick-off or injuries or other excuses that are mostly there.
07:04It's always about the quality of the team you face, in my opinion.
07:09Are the Darwin Nunez available again after suspension?
07:13He's still struggling for goals, we know he has so many different facets to his game,
07:18but you can see his confidence is being affected by the lack of goals.
07:22What do you do in that sort of situation?
07:25The vital component is the composure,
07:28but it's not an easy quality to bring to somebody when they are struggling with confidence.
07:33Yeah, but that's your perception and maybe the perception of other people as well,
07:37but it's not my perception that he's struggling with self-confidence.
07:40He was involved against Equestrian Stanley in the first goal again as well,
07:44he was involved in the goal against Fulham that Jota scored,
07:48and he scored one against Southampton.
07:50I think after that it wasn't that he had many stars, maybe one time, I don't know exactly.
07:55For me it's the life of a striker, sometimes you score, sometimes you don't,
08:01and he hasn't started every single game.
08:05The most important thing for me is that we as a team are able to score every single game,
08:10except for the Tottenham one.
08:12I'm not sure, maybe that was the only game we played this season that we didn't score.
08:15Is that true, what I'm saying?
08:17Tottenham.
08:18Tottenham, because you are from Stad, so...
08:21So it tells me that we have so many goals in our team,
08:25and, yeah, Darwin will score his goals like he did for this club already,
08:30and he will keep doing this, but I don't see him struggling that much,
08:35as the way you see it, and he's still involved in goals in the last few games as well.
08:41Cody Gappo's form on the left-hand side for the majority of the season has been sensational,
08:47that's meant that Luis Diaz generally has to play in a more central position,
08:53and he's been effective himself out on the left-hand side,
08:56but he's not been as effective in the recent games,
08:59is it sometimes a struggle to try and shoe-horn all these different talents?
09:07I do agree with your perception that Cody is in a very good place, so sometimes we agree.
09:12Lucio has done really well as a nine, and even in West Ham just before the winter break,
09:19that was a performance of us as a team, but from him as a nine also very good.
09:25Afterwards he played there in three more games, I think, United, Tottenham,
09:32and the last one against Forest.
09:37In all games we've created many chances as a team, and that's the most important thing.
09:44I'm happy with how he does, if we play him as a left-winger,
09:49and I'm happy how he plays when we play him as a nine.
09:53It's the same like Darwin, he's scored many goals already as a nine,
09:57he's scored many goals as an 11 as well,
09:59and sometimes it's the right-winger, Mo, who scores.
10:02You haven't talked about him yet, but the last three games he only scored a penalty,
10:06so we can continue talking about every single player of us about the goals they score,
10:13but in general we score a lot of goals, and we create a lot of chances,
10:17that's the most important thing.
10:22You haven't had a clean sheet in the last seven games, how much of a concern is that?
10:27We haven't.
10:31Yeah, not as much as we did before.
10:34I wouldn't say it's a concern, but it's also not what we want,
10:39because it was one of our strengths from the beginning of the season
10:42that we kept a lot of clean sheets, but...
10:45It's every time they say what I'm saying now,
10:48so we've talked about the strikers or the attackers sometimes having a bit of difficulty to score.
10:54I think if I look at the amount of chances we gave away in the last seven games,
10:58and I look at how many chances we gave away in all the games before,
11:02I don't see many differences.
11:04The only difference is that the team we are facing at the moment,
11:08so Forrest, for example, they had one serious shot on target,
11:13and that was a goal.
11:15That is not normal in football, and this has happened to us.
11:19United had maybe three good chances against us, scored two,
11:23Tottenham had hardly any chance except for the one when Ali lost the ball,
11:27and the one chance they had in the end they scored.
11:30So that is, like with strikers, sometimes a phase in the season
11:34where you hardly concede anything but still they score.
11:37I've said already, Crystal Palace away,
11:39that we beat 1-0 ten minutes before the end,
11:41they went on a 1-1 against Fietswitz,
11:44which was a bigger chance maybe than some goals we've conceded recently.
11:49So that is also, sometimes you're a bit lucky,
11:52and sometimes your goalkeeper makes a great save.
11:56But like the amount of chances we create, we hardly concede a chance,
12:00and that has been the same for the whole season.
12:03But when it comes to collecting points,
12:06you can also see a bit of a difference at the moment
12:09compared to the beginning of the season.
12:15Just wondering, when you see a Premier League rival
12:18investing in a player with a ten-year contract...
12:22Is that a reminder of how good you have to be consistently season-over-season
12:28to be able to compete in a tournament like that?
12:31Not particular about the investments,
12:33but we know how good we have to be every single day to compete in this league,
12:37so it's not only the club you are now referring to.
12:42Chelsea also spend 1.2 billion, is that the way you say it over here?
12:46Yeah.
12:48United spends an incredible amount, every team spends a lot of money over here,
12:53that's why it's such an interesting league to be part of.
12:57Some season this club spends a bit more,
12:59the other season the other club spends a bit more,
13:01so that's what makes this league so intense and so difficult to win.
13:06But that's also the reason why we all want to be here,
13:09because you want to compete against the best, with the best,
13:13and we are very happy with the team we are having at the moment.
13:16And we are still able to compete with all these teams
13:20that are spending an incredible amount of money.
13:22Can I just ask you on Johnson?
13:26With his injury history,
13:28do you have to treat him slightly differently, like a special programme,
13:33just because of the injuries he's had?
13:37Not because it's Jota, but I think every player has an individual programme,
13:43I've said this last week as well, that 80 or 90 per cent they do the same,
13:48but of course every individual has things he wants to improve,
13:52or to prevent him from getting a certain injury that he maybe had in the past.
13:57So of course there is an eye on him doing some individual work
14:01to prevent him from getting injured,
14:03but that's not only with him, that's with all the others the same.
14:07So there is a special programme for him, as there is for every single player,
14:12there's a special programme for every single player,
14:15but 80 or 90 per cent is for every player the same.
14:19Mark?
14:20Hi, as it turns out, Forrest at home was in at the time we did the score,
14:24just in case you were wondering.
14:26Attack and depth is such a massive commodity for all teams at the moment this season,
14:31and Liverpool's have been much celebrated this season,
14:34but we're actually only ranked 12th for goals from the bench,
14:37Jota's was only the third time this season Liverpool scored a goal from the bench
14:41in the Premier League this season,
14:43and you've spoken so often about how games are tight,
14:46and how, against a team like Frankfurt, who are very good at scoring, scoring late on.
14:50Is it something you'd like to see improved on,
14:52and do you think your attacking side needs to do more to affect the game?
14:57No, because there was not many times a reason for them to affect the game with a goal.
15:02Of course, if we play we want to score goals, let that be clear,
15:06but one of the things I would like us to do better in the second half of the season
15:11and the first half of the season, although it wasn't many times necessary,
15:14to make a late goal winner, is that the way to say it?
15:19So there were a few games, United, Fulham, this one, where we created chance after chance,
15:26because everybody only reminds the Maguire chance,
15:29but in the seven minutes before we created three big chances.
15:33So we had a lot of chances in these three games to score the winner in the last phase of the game,
15:39but for almost all the other games, after 75 minutes, we were already leading.
15:44So there was not a real necessity then to score in the end,
15:49but in the three, four or five games where we weren't winning yet,
15:53we did create a lot of chances, but we were not able to score.
16:00Like I said, it's such a small sample size,
16:03if there are only three or four games where we needed a goal,
16:06it's a bit simple to make the conclusion that we don't score it then.
16:10So hopefully we don't come into these situations a lot,
16:14but definitely if we are coming into those situations,
16:18have one or two or three times a moment where we do score in the last minute of the game,
16:23when we deserve it.
16:26Jürgen, the initial rules might have an effect thinking around Jadon,
16:31potentially going on loan this month, but is it worth thinking around?
16:35Yeah, I think you take a lot of things into account if you want to loan out a player,
16:40and this could be one of them, but there are also other factors you take into account.
16:45Is it good for a player to get some playing time, yes or no?
16:48Do we think we still need him?
16:50We do have already three options for the number nine position.
16:54And it's not like we expect Jot now to be out for a long period of time,
16:59so it will be a struggle to have him on the pitch maybe on Saturday, maybe tomorrow.
17:04But we're hoping to see him on the pitch in the near future again,
17:09so we have three options.
17:12But Jadon did really well when he came in, so we have actually four options,
17:17and then it's up to us as a club to make the best possible decision for the near future,
17:22but also for the long-term future of this club.
17:27Just a question on opposition.
17:29The first Premier League game was against Frankfurt.
17:33What part of their game do you see as a threat?
17:42Some teams you play have one or two big strengths,
17:46and they play from this strength completely.
17:49So it's either they play the long ball, second ball, and they play counter-attack,
17:53but there are also teams that can do a lot of things really well,
17:56and I think this is an example for Brentford.
17:59They play a high-press man-v-man, they go to a very low block if necessary with the whole team,
18:04can score goals in all different ways.
18:07We all know their set-piece strength, of course.
18:10They can score goals in the first seconds of the game,
18:13so there's a lot for me to prepare the team for when we play Brentford.
18:17There are also some teams that are very good in one or two things,
18:22and that you can tell the team.
18:24Now I have to take a bit more time for this game
18:28to show them or tell them what the strength of Brentford is.
18:32So there's not one strength, I think they have many strengths,
18:35many different options, many different players.
18:37They can play with five at the back, they can play with four at the back.
18:40So it shows me that it's a team that has worked for so many years with the same manager already,
18:45because it's quite difficult to get one formation in your team,
18:49let alone if you want to have two.
18:51And that mostly is the situation if you work longer together,
18:55then you're able to bring more formations into your team.
18:59So it's a lot to prepare them for.
19:06I assume he is, yeah.
19:08Yesterday he wasn't out because he had a sore throat,
19:12but I assume he will be training with us today.
19:15But I still have to hear this, but we're expecting him to train with us today.
19:22You're welcome.