Arne Slot details how he wants Liverpool to develop chaos creation with possession control

Arne Slot has outlined his vision for Liverpool, emphasizing a style that balances creative chaos with controlled possession.

With pre-season now complete, the Dutchman is preparing for the first Premier League fixture of his tenure, as the Reds travel to Portman Road to face Ipswich Town on Saturday lunchtime.

Liverpool enter the new season after securing four wins in six pre-season matches.

The Reds recorded victories over Real Betis, Arsenal, and Manchester United in the USA, followed by a 4-1 triumph over Sevilla at Anfield last weekend.

In an interview with Canal+ ahead of the Ipswich clash, Slot discussed the ideal footballing approach he hopes to implement with his team.

“Style of play has been with my teams where I worked, I think, always the same,” Arne Slot said.

“There are a lot of similarities with Jürgen Klopp, with the way they played in the past, and I’m hoping we will see these similarities in the upcoming weeks and months.

“We like to have the ball, we don’t like the other team to have the ball… but the Premier League is a league where many good clubs are and many clubs want to have the ball, so we have to fight really hard for us to have the ball.

“And if we have it, we want to score, we want to be intense in everything we do.

“If we have the ball, we want to score – that’s quite simple of course! We want to be intense in everything we do.

“Maybe the only slight difference there is, is that after we win the ball, I like to go forward just as Jürgen liked it, but I sometimes like it when players try to keep the ball and not play the difficult ball, where Jürgen or the former regime maybe liked the chaotic scenes in and around the 16 a lot as well.

“They were really, really, really successful with that for so many years.

“But it sometimes also depends a bit on the players you have.

“I think we’re trying to find the balance between trying to create chaos at certain moments and trying to keep possession of the ball a bit longer in other moments.”

“The good thing is that also abroad and even in England, they play 11 v 11.

“In the rest of the world we drive on the left side, but in England they drive on the right! But in football, they just keep it with 11 v 11! So that’s a good thing! That’s not going to change.

“The teams we face are different, the managers I face are different, but the same things apply. The week or the two weeks before you play the next opponent, you try to understand in the best possible way how they play and how you have to react on that.

“In football there are a few systems that teams can play; in Holland, they play 5-3-2, 5-2-3, 4-3-3, 4-4-2 and the same thing applies to England. So there are a lot of similarities I think.

“But from what people told me, and I’m going to experience this, in Holland maybe one or two other stadiums had the same atmosphere as the Feyenoord stadium, but everybody is telling me that the atmosphere in England is everywhere you go to, it’s going to be loud. And maybe because of that reason, the intensity of the game is really high.

“That might be a difference to what I’m used to, but like I said, many things are also the same and I’m obviously looking forward to experiencing the Premier League.”

“Of course [I’m excited for that],” said Arne Slot.

“I already said a few times, I left a club where the fans were really special. If you would ask anyone in Holland which stadium they hate most to play in, I think everybody would answer you – if you are from the other team – they would answer you De Kuip, Feyenoord’s stadium.

“And I think in England it’s the same at Anfield. The other teams don’t like to play at Anfield, because of the fans and because of the style of play of Liverpool.

“We have to make sure that the style of play stays the same, and I’m 100 per cent sure that the fans will be the same as the last 100 years or longer they have been in supporting Liverpool.”

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