Round-upArne Slot press conference: Liverpool v Aston Villa, confidence, approach and more

The Reds are back in league action on Saturday night when they meet Unai Emery's in-form side at Anfield.

Read on to see what Slot had to say in his session with reporters at the AXA Training Centre...

On how he is 'trying to solve the problems with injuries and the number of games'...

Just handling the situation as it is. Let me use Alex [Isak] as an example, he had to do his pre-season inside the season and people can then argue, 'Why do you play him?' But if I don't play him, I don't have him available and we need to have him available, because otherwise I have to play Hugo [Ekitike] every single game. And I was just with Owen Hargreaves when he made the comparison between the two of them and he showed that one played 34 games last season, the other one 34 – and we play 60 over here. So, that's why I need to get Alex as soon as I can into playing as many games as he can.

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That has been something not only with him but with a few others as well. Jeremie Frimpong has been in and out with injuries quite a few times, same with Conor Bradley. So if one is out, the other one has to play more – that's why I've played Dominik Szoboszlai a few times in that position. That has been something what every team, by the way, has, so it's again not an excuse for us because every team works with this. But what was a bit different, for example, for me [to] last season is that last season they all had one year [of] Premier League experience as a minimum and they were fit when we started and they stayed fit.

And now, they weren't all fit from the start and some players have to play maybe even more than you want them to do, which is a risk for them getting injured as well. But it's just the situation as it is and we have still more than enough good players available to play the game on Saturday, to play the game on Tuesday and to play the game on Sunday. But I have to take care of a few of them and that's why I made the decision not to play seven or eight players two days ago.

On how much he is learning about himself during this run...

Maybe learning comes a little bit later because now you are mainly focused on, 'How can I change?' And you always evaluate the decisions you've made and the choices you've made or the things you've done afterwards. My focus is now not so much on trying to look back on what has happened but more on, 'How can we get a very good performance on Saturday?' So yeah, maybe the learning part is going to come a little bit later. But now the focus is on the future and is on, 'How can we get a good result or at least a good performance against Villa?' Because normally a good performance from these quality players leads to a good result.

On the factors that will help Liverpool get back on track and him being disappointed with the performance at Brentford...

Yeah, for 60 minutes. Thirty minutes was OK. I think the first half against [Crystal] Palace was also similar to that 60 minutes that I was talking about. The thing that gives me the most confidence is the quality of the players we have and the amount of chances these players are still creating. This will eventually always lead to these players scoring more goals than we've done until now. And we have to address certain other things but if I talk about that, if I'm speaking about what we have to improve, people then tell me I'm using excuses. So, maybe it's better now just to say we need to address certain things to do better. But there are a lot of positives to go into this week as well. Like I said, the quality of players is the first and foremost and the amount of chances we create from open play is still good enough to compete for the positions we want to compete for.

On confidence...

It gets more and more important in every Premier League game, let alone in games of ours. It's never helpful if you end a game of football against [Manchester] United with conceding a set-piece and you start another one [at Brentford] in the Premier League and you concede after five minutes from a throw-in, from a set-piece. I'm not 100 per cent sure if I'm correct, we had to defend 16 set-pieces and 15 we defended well. But we are in this moment of time where 15 isn't enough because we conceded 16.

The first one, someone said to me – who worked in a completely different department – that no plan survives the first contact and that is also a little bit what makes it difficult if you are five minutes in the game and you are 1-0 down – that's never helpful for confidence for the plan you are having. If I liked a little part of the game, it was the part after we conceded the 1-0, because at that moment of time we were creative, we created our chances but we couldn't score. And then in the last 10 minutes it became more of their game again and eventually the way we conceded the 2-0, that is something that is far from our standards.

On whether he would consider changing approach to take a more defensive outlook or if it goes against his beliefs...

It does go against my beliefs, but I've won games in the past [like this]. We were talking about [Manchester] City away, that maybe went against my beliefs [last season] but it was necessary to play it like that over there in the second half. So, I would be more than open to adapt in certain situations, but I don't think the story is – at least in my opinion – we concede chance after chance after chance, or that we are too open. It is absolutely not like this.

Every single game, maybe apart from Palace because in the first half we could have been two or three-nil down and maybe the Brentford game, in all the other games we deserved much more than we got. We hardly conceded a chance, even this week with the team I put out, which played together for the first time – I think they only conceded three big chances, unfortunately all three went in. That's because they weren't chances, they were big chances. I don't see us conceding a lot of chances, so I don't see a reason to change our playing style completely, but we need to do better in not conceding goals, that is for sure.

On whether Villa's turnaround in fortunes this season shows how quickly things can change...

It's also a sign that it is better to do it the way they did it than the way we did it! If you don't win in the beginning, people are like, 'Maybe they don't have the same team as last season' or whatever and then they start to win and everything is very positive again. With us, I think it's exactly the opposite. We are both on the same points and apart from Arsenal, I think many teams are in and around the same points, so again it tells you how hard the Premier League is.

They've done very well in the last five, six, seven or eight games and that didn't come as a surprise because even in the games they lost before, you could already see the signs they are a very good team and their playing style is really good. Normally, normally, normally – although with us the run is already quite long – you don't every time lose a game of football when you create more chances than the other team. They decided not to make a habit out of that – and let's hope we decide not to make a habit out of having more chances than the opponent but not winning it.