Slot Talk: On Recent Form and Finding a Balance

Today at 02:00 PM

The Reds face injury issues and failing form as they hope to return to rhythm

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot spoke to the press ahead of Liverpool's FA Cup Third Round fixture against Accrington Stanley, and the Reds' boss addressed concerns about his side's recent form:

I don't see that many differences [in the last two matches] compared to many other games we've played. The only difference is that we've played these two games after winning 6-3 from Tottenham and winning 5-0 from West Ham. So after those two games, everybody said, 'We know they were good but that they were that good we probably didn't know yet.' So if you compare to those standards, I do agree that the games against [Manchester] United and the last game against Tottenham were of lower standards compared to those if you look back at all the other games. Even [against] Leicester City, we were 2-1 up with 10 minutes to play.

The whole season, I said this many times, we won a lot of games and almost every game we won – maybe the only exception could be Chelsea – but all the other ones we've deserved to win but never by a big margin. It was always very tight. And if people ask me what can we improve, that is increasing that margin. Because otherwise you always depend on a bit of luck or being unlucky as well or a certain decision that can be made – you know I mean the referee decision, of course – and we must make sure that we don't depend on those moments anymore. And that's the next step that we have to make if we don't want to depend on luck or bad luck. Because Crystal Palace away, they got a big chance 10 minutes before the end, didn't score, we beat them with 1-0.

I know in football it's everywhere the same around the world, you're only judged by the results. And because of the results, people judge you on the performances. There's not many times if a team has a draw or a loss that people say, 'They played really, really, really well.' It's a long answer! The Tottenham game, if the referee would have given a red card, we would have kept a clean sheet over there and maybe be able to score against 10 men. Everybody would have said, 'Again, a difficult away game with a clean sheet, they totally controlled and dominated the game – again, a good performance of Liverpool.'

And now because we conceded the goal, it's all about us being a bit more sloppy and all these kind of things. That's what this industry is about and it's up to me to see, 'Is there really so much difference between us playing Leicester City, playing Ipswich away, playing Crystal Palace away?' And I think we are still the same team also in terms of the performance.

Slot also spoke at length about the need to balance rhythm and rest for his players amidst injury issues in some areas:

It's not difficult because I think if you are in a league like this and you play so many games, one of the most important things you can do is give players some rest once in a while when it is possible. Then you always wonder to yourself if they need a few days off, which has happened many more times this season where afterwards we had the result. You always wonder, you always try to reflect on the game. What have we done? Could we have done better?

In both games [against Man United and Tottenham] we had a lot of intensity, it was necessary because both games were intense, especially against Tottenham. If you look at the physical output, it was one of the best games this season. That's not to say we played the best with the ball, but [in terms of] physical output. That tells you then maybe for them being rested that at least they are completely ready to compete, so you cannot see what some people try to say now – that we might be tired or those kind of things. No, not at all. We are even having a step up. But what probably was not seen a lot was compared to the game two weeks ago, we changed five positions and a few of them didn't have a lot of playing time in the last six or seven weeks.

That's what I just also said: if a player is out for six or seven weeks in this league and has to train for himself and then comes back to this intensity, sometimes you have to find your rhythm in the first 10, 15 or 20 minutes. I think that's exactly what you saw against Tottenham, that's why that probably stayed in the head for many people a long time. But if I look at the game back and I look at the last 70 minutes, I see we were able – just as many times as two weeks ago – to arrive in and around the final third of Tottenham. Now there was a difference in the final third, we were not creating as many chances from getting into those positions as we did two weeks ago, but that is a normal situation in a season. That is the most difficult part of the pitch, the final third, and sometimes these attackers create chance after chance and sometimes it's a bit harder.