Liverpool boss Arne Slot believes that his side’s exceptional defensive performances are a result of their ability to dominate most matches.
The Dutchman has made a record-breaking start at Anfield, winning 11 of his first 12 games across all competitions.
Notably, he has become the first manager in the club’s history to win his first six away games, culminating in a 1-0 victory over RB Leipzig in the Champions League earlier this week.
The only blemish on Slot’s record so far is a surprise 1-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest in September.
However, Callum Hudson-Odoi’s winner in that match is just one of three goals Liverpool have conceded in the Premier League, giving them the best defensive record in the division.
This strong defensive resolve will be tested on Sunday when Liverpool faces Premier League title rivals Arsenal.
Slot remains confident in understanding the factors behind his team’s success thus far.
“There are two reasons why we don’t concede a lot,” Arne Slot told reporters at his pre-match press conference.
“One of them is that most games – almost all of them, maybe except for one – we dominated and controlled for large parts of the game.
“It helps if you dominate, if you have the ball, in order that you then can’t concede.
“But I also like that if we have difficult parts of the game or for a large part of the game like we had against Chelsea, that the work-rate is incredible not to concede.
“If you combine that with having the likes of Virgil [van Dijk] and Ibou [Konate] and the two goalkeepers we’ve used until now, that is probably one of the reasons – these three elements – why we haven’t conceded that much.”
Slot also discussed the challenges of having three consecutive away games, with the Arsenal match sandwiched between trips to RB Leipzig and Brighton & Hove Albion.
“That’s part of our lives [and] that’s also what the players are used to,” he continued.
“If they play Champions League or, like last season, Europa League, you know these challenges are there.
“For this game [Arsenal], we have three days in between, so that’s more than we had before the Leipzig game.
“It’s also more than we have for the Brighton game.
“Unfortunately for us, for all these three games we have one day less in recovery than the three teams we face, but that is also part of a season and part of our lives.”
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