ReactionArne Slot press conference: The 'relief' of Burnley win, his substitutions and Liverpool's plan for Alexander Isak
Arne Slot was left relieved after Liverpool finally broke Burnley down to secure a dramatic 1-0 victory at Turf Moor.
Mohamed Salah scored a penalty in the 95th minute on Sunday to ensure the defending champions’ 100 per cent start to their Premier League title defence extended to four games.
The Reds are now the first side in the division’s history to win four matches in a row with decisive goals netted in the final 10 minutes or later, and sit top of the table as the only team to have picked up 12 points so far this season.
Read a summary from Slot’s post-match press conference below.
- Slot's explanation of Alexis Mac Allister's substitution can be read here
On whether he takes reassurance from the mentality of his side in getting another late win or is concerned that the winning goal has taken so long…
A bit of both. I know how hard it is to create chances against a team that’s with 11 players in their 18-yard box. It’s by the way very good that they do this because they’ve almost got a point so I’m not saying anything negative about it, I’m just trying to explain how difficult it is against a Premier League team because they are very good players as well. If they defend with all of them back and they hardly try to bring the ball out from the back because the goalkeeper every time plays long, and we don’t score from a set-piece, then the only thing you can score from is open play – and open play is quite difficult if you have to outplay 11 players in their own 18-yard box.
That’s what we saw today – you come close, close, close but every time there is a foot in between or whatever. [There were] no really open chances, so a draw was probably what we expected throughout the game but we tried also with the substitutions we made to bring all the players we have that can attack on the pitch. I think we were six or seven in the end. I don’t know if that has anything to do with us scoring the goal but we did create the penalty and just before that [had] a big chance from Jeremie [Frimpong]. So, relief. Lucky.
On whether Milos Kerkez’s substitution in the first half was solely due to the fact he had been booked…
Not only the yellow card but also that afterwards he played the ball, no foul at all, but the referee blew his whistle, which can always happen because this happens in football. But the reaction of the fans and I also saw players of them also trying to go to the referee [saying], ‘If you think this is a foul, maybe you should give a yellow for it.’ Which would have been ridiculous of course, but then it is a risk. The only way we could lose this game is if we are down to 10 because with 11 v 11 we could have drawn it, but we could never have lost it because they have never been… in our 18-yard box. So, then the only way you can lose it is if we go down to 10 and I didn’t want to take that risk, which was hard for Milos because normally you don’t have to take a player off if he has a yellow before, but I felt this was the best choice to make.
On whether he thought about taking Salah off or if his aim was to overload with attacking players…
If you need a goal and things are not going really well – although in the second half I felt we were better and better and better and we came closer and closer and closer – but I thought about almost every substitution. But in the end you always come back to, ‘I don’t want to leave this stadium with a draw thinking I didn’t bring all my attackers in, all the guys that can score a goal.’ In another game you maybe wonder is it worth the risk to play with seven attackers, but against a team that plays with 11 players in their own 18-yard box that’s not, I think, a big risk then and that’s why we decided to do that. And taking Mo off – if you need a goal, it will probably happen this season or maybe next season, but it probably won’t happen a lot.
On whether Alexander Isak, who was not named in the matchday squad, trained this morning…
No, he did recovery but he had a hard and tough session yesterday. So, I can explain to you – it will take a few minutes but is not that difficult to understand. So, if you start the season when the players who have been off for three or four or five weeks, you give them a certain base. You give them a lot of good sessions before they are able in the end of the week to play 45 minutes. We got him from Newcastle in a state where you could say his pre-season is going to start now, so then he needs proper minutes of training before he has a certain base, let alone for him to play twice in three days. So, that’s what we do, what we try to prepare players for in the beginning of the season is [to play] once a week and then we try to do more and more and more for a minimum of two games a week so they are ready for that schedule.
Now, Alex is far from ready for that schedule of three games in a week, 90 minutes. But then we could use him today for five minutes and then Wednesday again 10, and then 15, but we don’t believe that is the way to build him up. We believe it’s the way… Sweden did the right thing of giving him good sessions without playing him a lot because if you play the player you cannot give him good sessions. They did the right thing [and] we did the same, so now he will be able either Wednesday or Saturday to play 45 as a minimum, and maybe a little bit more. But if he plays 45 on Wednesday don’t expect him to play 45 or more on Saturday because his body is not prepared for that, in our opinion.