NewsArne Slot press conference: PSV analysis and Liverpool's performances

The head coach spoke with the media at Anfield ahead of the Reds’ home Champions League tie against PSV on Wednesday night.

Read a summary from the briefing below.

On how much of an issue confidence is among his players currently…

I think until now it hasn’t been an issue. If you look at the way we played most parts of the [Nottingham Forest] game, and I think I said after the game on Saturday, that the first half an hour was actually everything I hoped it would be except for us scoring a goal. It hasn’t been every game this season that we have been able to create that much in the first half an hour against a team that was defending low. So that was, for me, positive, but the first time they arrive in our 18-yard box with a set-piece they score a goal and then it took a while for us to recover from that and in the first minute after half-time we conceded again.

And then again I saw a team that was trying a lot, so I even showed them yesterday or the day before how many times we arrived in their box and how many crosses we gave – and I think that was six or seven times the amount Forest gave a cross – but they defended much better in their box than we defended in and around our box and that is what everyone keeps reminding us of, and we keep reminding ourselves of that as well. So, we have to help ourselves defensively a bit more – I’m not talking about the last line, I’m talking about the whole team, because then maybe people will also see that on the ball we are not doing so many things differently than last season. But the amount of goals we concede is of course the big difference between this and last season.

On whether he feels the need to ‘prove himself to the fans again’ in a situation like this…

Yeah, but that has nothing to do with a situation like this. I think every day you have to prove yourself if you are working at a club of this level. So, you cannot say we won the league or we did this or this and now everything is OK. If you work at this level the next game is always the most important one and you have to prove yourself every single time. That’s for me, that’s for the players, and that is also what we like about working in this environment – that you can never rest, you always have to keep going if things go well but also definitely if things don’t go well. So yes, I don’t know if I have to prove myself to the fans as well as I have to prove myself to myself and to the players and to everyone involved in the football club.

On the differences between the PSV team Liverpool will face this season compared to last season…

Guus Til has been playing as a striker but there are also other things that we can see that are common between the two teams. The last two years under Peter Bosz, it’s a team that dares to press all over the pitch, they also like to build up from the back and to look at as a spectator it’s quite attractive football. There are things that are in common and there are also a few differences, and there are lots of things you can see in how he [Bosz] played at [Borussia] Dortmund and Ajax and PSV. He has certain ideas about how to play football.

On whether PSV are a ‘good opponent’ for the Reds to have…

I wouldn’t say it’s a good opponent to have right now. I think they are probably better than ever. I think they had a difficult spell last season at the end of the season and maybe didn’t start that well at the beginning of this season, although the results were good. But the last two or three months they are just a winning machine – very comfortable on the ball, defensively more solid than at the start of the season or in the period last season. So, the best person to answer that is of course Peter himself, but I think this team comes close to the best team he has managed at PSV. But they do really well – being six points above Feyenoord is already a big accomplishment because Feyenoord does really well this season also. So, that tells you how good they are doing.

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