Liverpool boss Arne Slot on fitness issues, the Premier League title race and the challenges of facing bottom side Southampton
Melwood, Liverpool, UK
Melwood, Liverpool, UK
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00:00Any first couple?
00:02Like always.
00:05Arno, I think both you and Virgil were in agreement on Wednesday night,
00:10certainly in saying that Alisson is the best goalkeeper in the world,
00:14just tell us, from your point of view, what really sets him apart?
00:18Shaving. Shaving shots is probably one of the most important things a goalkeeper has to do.
00:25No, I think to become the best goalkeeper in the world
00:29you sometimes need to make saves that others wouldn't make.
00:33I think he had one or two of them Wednesday.
00:39In general it was a bit exaggerated talking about 27 shots,
00:44he didn't have to make 27 saves.
00:47But he had two world-class saves in big moments for us.
00:52Because if you go 1-0 down, then the game would even be harder than it already was being 0-0.
00:59You've made the point a few times this season of saying that not often you've got more than you deserve.
01:05Is Wednesday an example of that turning around a little bit
01:09and developing the opposite kind of habit, which could be crucial now,
01:13maybe delivering three trophies?
01:15That's a long question, but I leave the little bit out, I would say.
01:21We weren't a little bit lucky, we were really, really, really lucky.
01:26But, as Michael Jordan said once, the harder you work the more luck you have,
01:31and this is the biggest compliment you have to give the players.
01:34They've worked incredibly hard, and I think even in the second half we didn't control ball possession,
01:40we were not the dominant team at all, but we controlled them better than in the first half.
01:45And that also has to do with the players being able, if you were 45 minutes,
01:50the other team had the ball a lot, you had to defend so much,
01:53mentally so strong and physically so strong to come up with the second-half performance,
01:58with not giving away that many open chances as we did in the first half.
02:02And even scoring a goal on the counter-attack,
02:05that shows you how mentally strong and physically strong these players are.
02:09Again, we talk about situations like that,
02:12there's a saying in English football that your name is on the court when you have situations like that.
02:17Do you look at it like that and think that mentality, that ability to get over the line
02:22when you haven't been necessarily your best performance of the season, how crucial is that?
02:29If you want to win something, if it's the Premier League or the Champions League or the FA Cup,
02:35you need to have once in a while a game where you don't play your best football,
02:41and you are lucky, which is maybe not lucky if you work as hard as we do,
02:45to get away with a result. There are almost no teams that play 38 games,
02:51and the Champions League is not as much, only good football.
02:55Real Madrid is one of the best examples of that.
02:58They also find a way to win a game if the other team is better than them,
03:02and that's what they did, but I'm not looking at all at the Paris Saint-Germain game anymore.
03:08Our full focus, my full focus, is now on Southampton,
03:12which is the first of three finals to be played in the upcoming week.
03:17How much has Wednesday taken out of the players,
03:20and how does it impact team selection, because obviously there is that second leg to come,
03:24and then there is a cup final against Newcastle as well.
03:27Yeah, but for me the one against Southampton is by far the most important,
03:31not only because it's the first one we play, but it is a very, very important one for us.
03:37So if I make the choice to play other players,
03:42that is because I think that's the biggest chance to win the game tomorrow,
03:46and not because I want to arrest them for the game against Paris Saint-Germain.
03:50So the only way I make a change is because maybe it's only two days in between,
03:56and then I might feel that playing someone else is a better option,
04:01because we have many players that are of equal quality.
04:05But that then only has to do with us getting a bigger chance of winning the game against Southampton
04:10than it has anything to do with the Paris Saint-Germain game.
04:16What goes through your mind when you are deciding team selection?
04:20I know the old cliche is it's one game at a time,
04:23but in your mind, do you actually probably know your line-up against PSG and the cup final?
04:28Do you think that far ahead?
04:30No, no. No, not as much as you might think.
04:36Of course, you do know what to expect now from PSG,
04:40you do know what to expect from Newcastle,
04:43but for me the most important game is the one against Southampton.
04:46And if there would be three, four, five days in between the last game and this one,
04:53I would have probably started the same XI again,
04:56even if there was only two days in between for the next one.
05:00But since there's only two days in between and we had to fight really hard,
05:04and it's not the first game after being three or four weeks out,
05:08it's probably the 50th game in three months.
05:12I don't know how many.
05:14So you take that into account, but you take the quality from the team you face,
05:17you take the form of the players, you take how fit they are,
05:21which players fit best together.
05:25So if you look at it, we started off with Lucio and Djogo,
05:30where Djogo is a type of player, nine-and-a-half for me almost.
05:34He's almost a midfielder as a striker.
05:39And then I finished the game with Curtis, who's a midfielder from the left,
05:42and Darwin, who's more of a real nine.
05:44So these combinations you look at depending on the opposition
05:47and the formation of the other team.
05:51The good thing for us, because you guys are only focused on Parisien-Germain,
05:56is that Southampton has the same formation if they have the ball as Parisien-Germain has.
06:02So now we need to do much better without the ball,
06:06so to press Southampton than we did against Parisien-Germain.
06:10So it's another good test for us.
06:13Only Nottingham Forest have used fewer players than Liverpool in the Premier League.
06:19Do you like having a tight squad like that, or in either world for a manager?
06:27I see the advantages of playing mostly with the same team,
06:32because they get used to each other, so that helps.
06:37But I also am aware of the fact that you cannot play a season with 11 players,
06:41so that's why you saw sometimes players rotating.
06:45I don't do this with 20 or 25, but mostly with 14 or 15, if possible.
06:50And the other ones don't always get the playing time they deserve.
06:53I think Javier is a great example of that.
06:56He's done so well for this club, he trains well,
06:59but he's in competition with Mo Salah and Dominic Subbersly.
07:04Now, I don't think Mo was happy that I took him off five minutes before the end,
07:08if I looked at his body language.
07:11And there's a reason for that, because he is a player that can score a goal for us,
07:15even if he's not even playing his best game.
07:18So that's why I hardly take him off, now I did.
07:22And Dominic Subbersly, you could call him a machine,
07:26every time you play him on the pitch he's the one that runs most.
07:30It makes it sometimes hard for Javi, that's why I like it so much how he did
07:36when he came in only five minutes.
07:38The players are sometimes frustrated if they only get five minutes,
07:41but in our team it has never happened.
07:43Maybe once or twice.
07:46But in general it has never happened.
07:51You mentioned Mo Salah's body language there,
07:54I just wonder, does the hunger of some of the more senior players in the squad
07:58make rotating and making the substitutions difficult for you?
08:02To be clear, that's not the headline that Mo was frustrated,
08:06I could see that he would have preferred me not to take him off,
08:09but his behaviour was completely normal.
08:11He shook hands, he just probably thought,
08:15maybe there's one chance to come and I will score that one.
08:18And to be fair to him, he always does that.
08:21So people now say, good substitution because Javi scored.
08:26I think if I asked him, he would tell me,
08:28if I would be there I would have scored the same ball as well.
08:32So he had a completely normal reaction,
08:36but not only the ones that you probably mentioned,
08:42like Mo and Virgil and the ones that won the league before.
08:45I think all of them show great character until now this season,
08:48and that's also what we need tomorrow again against Southampton,
08:52because they are not playing as a team that is bottom of the league.
08:56They take a lot of risks, they go man-for-man all over the pitch.
08:59That's the same what Paris Saint-Germain does,
09:02and they probably saw how difficult we had it over there with that game plan.
09:07So I'm expecting the same for tomorrow.
09:10It's another game where you'll be managing not on the touchline.
09:14I just wonder, from the game you played previously against Newcastle,
09:18I know a lot of managers have spoken in the past,
09:20that sometimes they get a good tactical view from up there,
09:23they analyse the game maybe a bit better,
09:25they like to spend time both up there and down the touchline.
09:28I just wondered what your view on that was and how you saw the game last night.
09:32Yeah, I think I have the same opinion.
09:35The only difference between now and five, 10, 15 years ago
09:38is that we have all iPads and MacBooks on the sidelines,
09:42so we have the same view if I look at that screen.
09:45So it's not necessary to take a suspension to have a great view.
09:50But, yeah, the view is better,
09:55but I always feel that if you're down the line or at the line,
10:00you feel a bit more the emotions, you feel better the strength of both teams.
10:05If players are tired, yes or no, then if you are up there, the game goes a bit slower.
10:10Where I'm sitting tomorrow, it's an easy game to play,
10:14but if you are standing at the same level,
10:16everybody will say,
10:17it's harder to play this game than I expected when I'm sitting so much higher.
10:22So it's not ideal, but I've said before with John, I think I have a very good replacement.
10:29He did so well at Ajax Amsterdam and he did really well in his first game in charge as well.
10:37Just to go back to the goalkeeping situation,
10:39Alisson has been the long-held number one here for such a long time.
10:43You signed Mohamed Dashvili last summer,
10:46is it important to keep providing that competition for Alisson,
10:50to keep getting the best out of him?
10:52I'm not saying you don't get the best out of him,
10:54but with him being number one for so long and being almost unchallenged,
10:58does he need that competition to keep him at the highest level?
11:03Yes or no, because he has great competition with Kweef Keller now as well,
11:09so if that is what drives him, then maybe it helps him to have such a good number two behind him,
11:16but I don't think he needs that.
11:18He's just a top professional, like all of the boys over here.
11:22And they know what it means to wear this shirt,
11:25you have to bring in top performances, otherwise you can't play for this club.
11:30And you always know if you are here if you are a midfielder,
11:34an attacker, a defender or the goalkeeper.
11:36If you don't do well, there's someone else that can do the job for you.
11:39If it's Kweef, we also have Fiyados, who is a very, very talented goalkeeper as well.
11:45So goalkeeper-wise, we are in a good place.
11:54After the PSG game, I guess you have metrics that you measure physical exertion in a place,
12:03but how do you assess what's taken out of them mentally,
12:09in terms of pressure and that kind of thing?
12:12Do you see that sometimes?
12:17That's difficult to measure, but that's definitely something you also feel
12:24when you are at the touchline.
12:26And it's definitely something you take into account,
12:29because you can only look at the data,
12:32and probably then they've run just as much as some other games,
12:35but there's a difference if you have 70 per cent ball possession,
12:38or you have only 30 per cent ball possession.
12:40That means the runs you have to make are more from a negative mindset.
12:44If they have the ball all the time, it's not as nice as if you have the ball yourself.
12:49So you do take that into account as well,
12:52and of course three or four months without any break,
12:55you take these things into account as well.
12:58But that's why, of course, I was not only happy with the goal Javi scored,
13:04because that gives us a good advantage for the second game,
13:11but it mentally helps a lot as well to score that goal.
13:15So we are in a good place, but like I said, three finals to be played in a week,
13:20again after this one with only two days in between.
13:24So, yeah, a week to look forward to for every Liverpool fan,
13:30and I know if the final is there and everybody is already talking to me
13:34about how the atmosphere will be on a Champions League night,
13:38but I hope, I truly hope, that our fans will be at their loudest tomorrow.
13:45And not in the final and not against PSG, but tomorrow.
13:49Is that because of the position of this game between those two sides?
13:55It's almost like people take it for granted that a man from the bottom of the league
13:59should be easier for you, but that's where the danger lies in this match.
14:07Yeah, I have to convince my players that we play three finals, like I said a few times,
14:12and I'm hoping, and that's why I come up with the word final every time,
14:16that I influence our fans a bit as well,
14:19that they understand how important they are going to be tomorrow.
14:22So I'm hoping they will not come into the stadium five minutes before the kick-off,
14:27I'm hoping the whole stadium is already completely filled half an hour before kick-off,
14:31and that these players get the reward for what they did in Paris,
14:35for working so hard, so they have great songs.
14:38Sometimes when I look at social media I see these songs coming from Lucio,
14:42and from Virgil, and from Maka, and they are really creative in these songs.
14:47Let's hear them before the game tomorrow, although I'm in the stands.
14:52Maybe I can start them! With Isaac, Isaac is always this little boy.
15:05I wanted to check on the status of Kovacic, how close did he come?
15:11He didn't train yesterday yet, so let's see if he can train with us today.
15:16Again, close call and it's not a long-term injury,
15:22but he still had a bit of pain yesterday, so he was not able to train.
15:27Let's see where he is today, so I can't give you the answer yet.
15:33With the game against Southampton, the last time there was a relegation threat
15:37came to Liverpool, that was the Wolves' game,
15:40Liverpool got themselves into a very good position in the first half,
15:43then the second half kind of relinquished that position a little bit,
15:46Wolves had ten shots to Liverpool's zero.
15:49If you're in a similar situation in this game,
15:52do you know what you need to do to maintain that dominance for the whole 90 minutes?
15:59Now we have to act differently than we did in the second half,
16:02but it's not always only up to us, it was also the quality of Wolves,
16:06and I think they have a much better season than the league table shows you,
16:11but we're not here to talk about Wolves, we're here to talk about Southampton.
16:14It's also a team that takes a lot of risks in their pressing,
16:19so they're not afraid to go 1-3-1 all over the pitch,
16:22so if you're not sharp or underestimate things,
16:25just because they are more aggressive in certain moments,
16:28they can immediately hurt you, and that's also what Wolves did in the second half.
16:31In the first half they were maybe a bit lower, defending a bit deeper,
16:36where in the second half they had nothing to lose and they just came at us.
16:39We did have one or two answers, because I think we scored a goal which was offside
16:44and we had a penalty that was turned over, both correct.
16:47But, yeah, if a team takes that many risks,
16:51we saw this with Palizzi and Germain as well,
16:53it's hard to play through it, but if you only do it once or twice in the right way,
16:58it immediately leads to a goal, and that's what we saw just before half-time
17:03against Palizzi and Germain, when Jot was 2-3-1 with Luis Diaz,
17:08and we saw this in the last minute, where Javi was completely free and Darwin saw him,
17:13and we scored a goal.
17:16Hi, Arjen. You mentioned luck earlier,
17:19do you think things have gone in his favour this season?
17:28If you think injuries are only a part of luck or bad luck, then we've been lucky.
17:35But we try to prevent them from a certain way of working,
17:43so that we don't have many injuries, I don't see that as luck,
17:47I see it as, first of all, top professionals, our players do everything to stay fit,
17:52and second of all, great facilities and great staff.
17:56But, yeah, you need to show this over a longer period of time to consider it luck or bad luck,
18:02so if we can continue doing this for years without many big injuries,
18:07then it's probably also quality.
18:11Although you cannot go through a season in the Premier League and the Champions League
18:16and all these cups we play in this country without any injury,
18:19I said it before, Diego Jota has been out for three or four months without a start,
18:23Alisson Becker has been out for weeks, maybe even months,
18:27Trent has been out, Joe Gomez is out now for three months,
18:32so we also have our injuries, but you cannot go through a season without an injury,
18:38it's more the amount of injuries that you hopefully try to prevent.
18:42And it could be luck, but I hope that we do things in the right way,
18:47that it's not only luck but it's also doing things in the right way.