Arne Slot spoke this afternoon in front of a packed media inside the AXA Training Center in Kirkby as the Reds prepare to face Spanish side Atletico Madrid in this season’s UEFA Champions League opener at Anfield tomorrow night.
A host of questions were thrown at the Dutch coach, whose side finished top of last season’s new format, but was eliminated in the quarterfinals by the eventual winners, Paris Saint-Germain.
Below is all Arne Slot had to say at the press conference.
On Alexander Isak
“There’s definitely a chance because he’s in the squad. So, then there’s a chance to play, but it’s I normally always say 99.9% sure, but I can say it’s 100% sure that he will not play 90 minutes. But he’s part of the squad. So it’s already a Champions League game to look forward to. But if people look forward to his playing time, that could mean that that could happen tomorrow as well.
The only thing that is sure is that he would not play 90, and all the rest you will see tomorrow.
Getting fit. Getting fit after missing out four months and proper team sessions, he doesn’t have to prove to anyone that he’s good enough to play in the Premier League because that’s what he’s proven already at Newcastle. So the main challenge he has is to become so fit that he’s first of all ready to do what he did last season, and so the moment he’s fit and match fits and he can play 90 and then the next step is playing three times in a in a week 90 minutes and then the next step is going one step further in terms of in terms of pressing and that’s what he has to do and then scoring goals and doing special things in attack. That is something he will 100% sure do.
On Florian Wirtz’s start to life at Liverpool
I put that down to Bournemouth. I put that down to Newcastle. I put that down to Arsenal. I put that down to a team we faced this weekend that only conceded 14 goals last season. If it’s correct, I don’t know, but someone told me today is the first time in 18 months that Bernie lost a home game. So if I’m wrong, that’s because of that person. But it tells you how hard it is to play these games and we, which is normal because there’s so much focus on our new signings because especially the pundits that favor not us but some other clubs in the country that cannot stop talking about 450 million. I repeat 450 million. I repeat 450 million, but they always forget the 300 million that we’ve sold for. And these players that we’ve brought in are indeed a lot of money, but they are playing now together with players that are worth the same amounts of money. So yes, if we want to strengthen the squad, we need to spend almost that much money because then they are, if we sell Dominic tomorrow, he would be worth 100 million as well. So there’s so much focus on Florian, but the ones that has have stayed behind still in the team haven’t scored four goals or 12 assists as well. So he’s been part of a team Florian that is on top of the league that won four games. He’s part of the team that won against Newcastle, that won against Arsenal, where the team of last season didn’t win away at Newcastle, didn’t win at home against Arsenal. So, it’s the way you want to look at it. Yes, he hasn’t scored four goals or 12 assists in the first four games, but for me, that’s down to the quality we’ve faced, and he’s part of a team that’s number one in the league at the moment.
Building on last season’s success.
Yeah, I think we are far above my expectations during the summer. So we all know what happened this summer. We all knew when the program on the schedule came out that we had to face Newcastle away, Arsenal at home, and Bournemouth at home, and it turned out to be Burnley, a difficult one as well. But that is maybe not what I expected it but not in the fashion as it happened on Sunday. So for us to be in 12 points now is so much more than I expected, especially after we’ve had so many changes in the group as well in our squad, sorry. And yeah, I think we can do better, but we’re not every time going to face Newcastle away in Arsenal at all.
On the test that Atletico Madrid may pose
When I was at Feyenoord in the Eredivisie, you knew when you went from a Sunday to a Wednesday, you had to make two steps up. unless you played Ajax or PSV on the weekend. But if you play in the Premier League, it is either the same quality you face or a little step up. So yes, it’s again a very difficult one because Atletico Madrid has done so well in La Liga over so many years with Diego Simeone, they were even able to win the league twice when you face Real Madrid and Barcelona, and they’ve been twice in the final of the Champions League. So this again is a team that is a difficult one to play against because of the mentality, because of their team performance, because of their individual quality. The last time I faced them, I still wake up sometimes, that’s not true, but at night, thinking about Griezmann, how good he was in that game.
I think we lost 3-1. I’m not exactly sure, but he was outstanding that game. So, the good thing now is that in my team, I have players who can do similar things that Griezmann can do. And although I loved my players at Feyenoord a lot, a lot as well, but at that moment in their moment of their career, they were not able to compete with Griezmann on that night.
Squad mentality
Yeah, everybody’s very focused on us winning the game late on. But that again has a lot to do with the teams we faced as well. So of course, it has a bit to do with how fit we are that we can always keep on going and make the difference in the last part of the game, but if you face maybe teams that are not as strong as that you were able to win the game a bit earlier. So it probably also tells you how difficult our schedule has been in the first few games for us that we need to win it in the end. Then people will tell me, “Yeah, what are you talking about? You’ve played Burnley as well.” But again, this team only conceded 14 goals last season in the whole season. So yeah, very happy with where we are, especially because I don’t know if everyone knows what I mean by that, but I think everyone does what a summer we’ve been through. And I’m not talking about selling players or bringing players in. I think we all know what I’m talking about. And then to be here with 12 points after such a difficult start in terms of the teams we faced is more than expected. But still, we know as well, and we want to do better. But I also wanted to do better than last season. So if we have kept that team together, we needed to do better as well, and that’s why we are every day on the training pitch, to try and in meetings, to try and make the team better.
On the importance of Andy Robertson and how he helps Kerkez
“Brilliantly well said, Arne Slot. ” I think he played well, that we agree. If he had played brilliantly well, he would have hit this left-foot outside shot into the top corner. No, he had a very good impact. Milos started the game not brilliantly well, but he started the game well. But we had to take him off and then it’s such a nice thing that you have Andy Robertson to replace him, and he just came in the team as if he never been never been doing anything else and started to play with his teammates, but it was a difficult game for us so I don’t think anyone played brilliantly well. But he definitely played well, and so it’s good to have him in the squad. So that’s for sure.
Yeah. Although you never know when they’re sitting in front of me or when I have my team meeting, they don’t stand up and say, “I disagree with you.” But maybe when he’s at home and he’s talking to his father or his girlfriend or his friends, he’s like, “What a stupid decision this was.” But when I’m around, he comes across as if he understood it. And I showed yesterday that, because that was maybe clear for every player. You could see after he made the foul, which you could argue was a foul or not, but if the referee blew his whistle, I’ve highlighted that six of their players went over to the referee, and the referee made a signal twice like this. No, no, this is not a yellow card for me. This is not a yellow card for me. And for me, it was like you could even argue this was a foul or not, and it was already necessary to tell everyone in the stadium that it was definitely not a yellow. What will happen if he makes a normal file, which is normally not a reason for a yellow. So for me, that combination if their players wouldn’t have gone to the referee if he wouldn’t have made this thing I would have at least kept him on till halfime but I felt also the atmosphere in the stadium smart from their fans by the way they were on every decision they were on top of the referee I felt if he only touches him once he’s under a lot of pressure not to give him as yellow and um that’s what I tried to explain and again he said he understood but but yeah I I don’t know how what he says to his fans about it, but to me he says he understood.”
On the Champions League format
Arne Slot said, “I got that question just a second ago as well. I think the it’s not a smart thing to do is is judge something on one event because if I judge it on one event I would say it’s of no interest if you end up number one or number seven or number eight because we had a very difficult draw and the number 11 Real Madrid had to play at number 22 which was Man City. So, what I like about this draw is tonight I go home. I go a little bit earlier home after this press conference, but tonight I’m in front of the television and I’m looking at, oh, which game is going to come up because it’s always going to be a nice game because there can be a part one team that plays a part one team. In the past, it was always pot one, pot two, pot three, pot four. So that is the nice part of it. What I don’t like about this format is that if you have NBA everywhere where you have a league table, and then you play playoffs, you have a league table after everyone playing the same teams. So if you then end up number one, then probably the number eight is weaker than the number five. But now there are teams that come from pot four that have an easier draw than teams that are on pot one. So this whole league table doesn’t give the real opinion about who’s good and who isn’t. So then it can happen like last season that the number 11 Real Madrid can play the number 22 Man City, and it’s not like Man City did something so bad. No, they had to face a difficult draw and it’s the same like PSG. If you look up the draw this season, it’s the same as last season. So if you ask me this question immediately after we lost PSG, I would have told you to forget about the first eight games. But now I use my brains a bit more and I tell you, don’t judge a new format on the first time. Judge it after three or four times, and that’s see maybe the upcoming three times the number one of the league table will have a favorable draw, but that was definitely not the situation last season.”
Thoughts on PSG winning last season’s competition
“A bit of both, maybe because we were so close. I think it wasn’t that I said it, but I think Luis Enrique said before when he sat here, he said the team that’s going to win this playoff is going to win the tournament. And he was right. Not to say that it would have happened with us as well, but in the end, he was right. So, it tells you that we were a team, we were the only team that could bring them to extra time and the only team that could bring them to penalties. So, it was a frustration to lose it with penalties.
It also, if you are out, at least that’s what I have. If I’m out, I prefer to go out against the team that wins it in the end because that tells you if you can bring them so far. Yeah, it’s a bit too simple to say, then we weren’t that far off from winning it as well. But we felt that was the best team in Europe last season. I think everybody agrees to that because they won the French league, they won the cup, they went to the Club World Cup, and were very close to winning that as well. So it’s fair to say they were the best team in Europe last season. That we were so close to beating them gives us also the confidence that we are able to compete in this league as well. But even if we would have lost them two times with 4-0, I would still tell you now that Liverpool will always be able to compete in the Champions League. I don’t think anyone is surprised that I was mainly impressed by the way they press that is a double press, and that was one of the examples that was so outstanding in his pressing game. So everybody is focused on PSG about all the goals they score but I was mainly impressed by the way they pressed.” Arne Slot continued.
On Dominic Szoboszlai
Connor Bradley is fit again as well. But we also have three or four very good midfielders fit as well. Endo, MacAllister, Dominic, and Florian. Do I have one? Curtis is not fit because it’s Jones. So yeah in every position we have a lot of competition. He can play in both positions. And let’s see if he plays tomorrow, where he’s going to play. Just behind.
On Liverpool’s summer spending
Arne Slot laughed, “He’s been listening to a lot of talk scores because he was saying that we’ve spent so much money and it didn’t come to him, probably that we’ve sold for 300 million. I repeat for 300 million as well. I think it’s only a compliment. I think it’s only a compliment that people tell everyone that we’ve spent so much because that tells you that the players we’ve brought in are seen as very good players. So I’m for a part responsible for bringing the players in as well, together with some other people and I think we should see this as a compliment that everybody is like wow, they did great business, and I think we did, we brought in great players, and to add to that, we’ve already lowered the age of the players. So some other teams prefer to bring in 27-year-olds because they’re already bomb ready, but we think we’ve brought in players from 21, 22 that are ready, but also 21, 22. So, and then if they are four or five years with you, you can still sell Luis Diaz for 80 million. But if he would have been 28, I think it’s harder to sell him for 80 million if he’s 32. So that’s our model and I think that model should get a lot of praise because I’ve said it here in England once or twice and I can say it one more time to you as well. I think all the money we’ve spent we generated oursel by selling and winning the league after we didn’t buy anyone at all. I don’t know if you know but if you win the league that’s quite good financially as well. So those two situations led to the fact that we could spend 450 million. It wasn’t as if we looked in the ground and so there’s money coming up let’s spend 450. No, we’ve generated ourselves, and that is, I think, a big compliment for the model we have and for the quality players we’ve brought in, that everybody is only talking about the 450 we’ve spent. And we are always, that’s not a surprise to you if you’re Liverpool, you’re always if you’re an English club playing in the Champions League, you belong to one of the favorites.”
Yeah,
Update on Curtis Jones’ injury
“I can tell for talked to you for a long time, but I have already talked for a long time. So he will train with the team tomorrow. So um hopefully he’s able to be in the squad on Saturday, but not for tomorrow yet.
Loose, you mentioned earlier about Robo coming in and doing well.” Arne Slot concluded
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